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THE RESURRECTION

AND

THE VIRGIN BIRTH

TWO ESSAYS

3 I V 3

C ft

o at*

THE
OTHER GOSPEi^MRRATRJES

THE NlRRXTlYES OF THE
YIRGIN BIRTH

TWO ESSAYS

BY

W. LOCKTON, B.D.

VICE-PRINCIPAL' AND LECTURER IN MATHEMATICS
WINCHESTER DIOCESAN TRAINING COLLEGE

LONGMANS, GEEEN AND GO.

39 PATEBNOSTEB BOW, LONDON, B.C. 4

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PREFACE

IT is generally admitted that in the accounts
of the first Easter morning recorded in the
gospels there are various discrepancies and
even contradictions. The purpose of the
first of these essays is to suggest a fresh
solution of the problem, and frankly aban-
doning the commonly accepted Mark-Q
hypothesis, which indeed seems to create
unnecessary difficulties, to show how, if
Luke be taken as giving the most primitive
form of the evangelical tradition which has
survived, we have an explanation of the
development of the story which is both
reasonable and adequate. Comparison of
the different narratives suggests indeed that
in many ways the fourth gospel in spite of
its later date and more obvious interpretative
elements is more v reliable historically than
Mark. The writer makes no claim to any
special literary capacity, or even indeed to a
quite ordinary facility in the art of writing
most of his time is spent in quite different
pursuits and he puts forward the two essays
only because in spite of their crudeness

vi PREFACE

and inadequacy he has been told that they
may be of value to those interested in,
or who have difficulties about, the Resur-
rection and Virgin Birth. In a discussion
on a very different topic with the late Dr.
Wickham Legg that great scholar was in-
sistent upon the desirability of those whose
researches had led them to definite results
publishing them at the earliest opportunity,
and for this reason by the kindness of the
editors of the Church Quarterly Review the
writer has printed his conclusions with
regard to 'The Eucharistic Prayer' and
' The Origin of the Gospels,' though with the
merest suggestion of proof. The first of the
two essays in this book is a continuation and
application of the principles of the latter,
and like it is based on a paper prepared for
the Winchester Clerical Association. The
Mark-Q hypothesis is to-day regarded as
almost axiomatic in any study of the gospels,
and the writer is well aware of his audacity
in suggesting that what has been called c the
great literary achievement of the last fifty
years of New Testament scholarship ' is
really only a mare's nest, yet the more he
examines the question by the help of
whatever books are published, the more he
is convinced that this is correct. The ease

PREFACE vii

with which so many put on one side the
difficulties of the Mark-Q hypothesis, par-
ticularly the many points of agreement of
Luke and Matthew against Mark, raises a
doubt in many cases whether the writers
have ever studied the problem at first hand
and apart from reliance on the all too con-
venient, though by no means exhaustive,
lists compiled by Dr. Abbott and Sir John
Hawkins. That the writer's conclusions
will be generally accepted at once is not
expected, but it is hoped that, in spite of
many deficiencies of style and method, the
argument will be found not unworthy of
the attention of some even of those who
have made a speciality of Gospel studies,
as well as of others who can make no such
claim. The original purpose of the writer
was not apologetic, but simply to follow a
line of argument whithersoever it led. On
some points he has to confess that he would
not have been sorry if the conclusions had
been different, as for example, with regard
to the stone at the door of the sepulchre ; but
if his contentions are correct, it will be seen
that there is more to be said for the tradi-
tional view than we are frequently allowed
to suppose.

It is hoped that the examination of the

viii PREFACE

accounts of the various ecstatic visions re-
corded in the New Testament and elsewhere
will be of value in explaining the apparent
contradiction between Mark and the other
synoptic gospels with regard to the conduct
of the women at the sepulchre and their
report to the apostles, as well as in enabling
us to gain a better grasp of the significance
of other events in the gospel story.

The second essay seeks to prove that the
earliest evangelical tradition included a
statement of the fact of the Virgin Birth,
and that the verses frequently impugned as
interpolated are an original element of the
third gospel. The comparison with other
accounts of ecstasies it is hoped will be of
some value for a proper appreciation of
the story of this mystery also.

The text of the many quotations from
the gospels and elsewhere is usually that of
the Revised Version, and the writer wishes
to express his thanks to the University
Presses of Oxford and Cambridge for per-
mission to use it. Sometimes, however, for
purposes of the argument another transla-
tion was necessary, and the writer alone is
responsible for all such deviations from the
Revised Version, as for any other lapses
from strict accuracy of quotation.

CONTENTS

THE RESURRECTION AND OTHER GOSPEL
NARRATIVES

CHAP.

I. THE SECONDARY CHARACTER OF ST.

MARK . . . . . . 3

II. THE BURIAL OF OUR LORD . . 9

III. THE VISIT OF THE WOMEN TO THE

TOMB 27

IV. ECSTASIES RECORDED BY ST. LUKE . 40
V. THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD . . 49

VI. THE TRANSFIGURATION AND THE

ASCENSION OF OUR LORD . . 64

VII. THE VISION AT THE SEPULCHRE . 75
VIII. THE MESSAGE OF THE ANGELS . . 82

IX. ST. MARK'S STORY OF THE ECSTASY

AT THE TOMB .... 97

X. ST. JOHN'S STORY OF MARY AT THE

TOMB 105

XI. THE APPEARANCE OF OUR LORD IN

GALILEE . ... .113

ix

x CONTENTS

THE NARRATIVES OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH

CHAP. PAGE

I. ST. LUKE'S ACCOUNT . . .123

II. ST. MATTHEW'S ACCOUNT . . . 131

III. THE FAMILY AT NAZARETH . . 143

IV. THE APOSTLES OF CHRIST . . . 147
V. THE BRETHREN OF THE LORD . . 153

VI. BRETHREN WHO WERE APOSTLES . 168

VII. THE SOURCES OF THE BIRTH NARRA-
TIVES 178

THE RESURRECTION

AND
OTHER GOSPEL NARRATIVES

Victimae Pasehali

Laudes immolent Christian!.
Agnus redemit oves ;

Christus innocens Patri

Reconciliavit

Peccatores,
Mors et vita duello

Conflixere mirando ;

Dux vitae mortuus

Regnat vivus.
Die nobis, Maria,

Quid vidisti in via ?

Sepulchrum Christi viventis,

Et gloriam vidi resurgentis ;

Angelicos testes,

Sudarium et vestes.

Surrexit Christus, spes mea,

Praecedit suos in Galilea.
Credendum est magis soli

Mariae veraci

Quam Judaeorum turbae fallaci.

Seimus Christum resurrexisse

Ex mortuis vere.

Tu nobis, victor rex, miserere.

CHAPTER I

THE SECONDARY CHARACTER OF
ST. MARK

SOME time ago the writer published an essay
on the 4 Origin of the Gospels,' * and put
forward reasons for thinking that not Mark
but Luke represents the earliest evangelical
tradition which has survived, Mark, though
in some degree exhibiting the teaching of
Peter, being for the most part merely an
altered and not infrequently an inaccurate
version of what we find in Luke, while
Matthew, which is even more strongly
Petrine, is largely a combination of the
traditions found in Mark and Luke, the
changes in each case being due, at any rate
frequently, to oral transmission, not to the
deliberate revision of an editor. It is hoped
that it will be not without value to apply
the methods enunciated on the former
occasion to the stories of the resurrection,

1 Church Quarterly Review, July, 1922.

4 THE SECONDARY CHARACTER

and an attempt will be made not only to
illustrate the priority of Luke, but also to
bring out what exactly was the course of
events on the first Easter morning, and at
the same time show how the different
accounts came to be what they are, and
to differ in so many particulars.

It will be useful first of all to draw
attention to the points of agreement of Luke
and Matthew against Mark, in the accounts
of the events from Good Friday evening
to the morning of the first Easter Day,
beginning with the story of the women at
the cross. Luke and Matthew agree in
saying that they followed Jesus c from
Galilee, 5 while Mark says ' when he was in
Galilee.' Neither Luke nor Matthew says
anything of the ' many other women which
came up with him unto Jerusalem,' of
whom Mark speaks. Luke and Matthew
agree in omitting the reason for Joseph of
Arimathsea's appeal to Pilate, ' because it
was the Preparation, that is, the day before
the sabbath,' though Luke gives a similar
note of time later, presumably as a reason
for the haste in burial. ' And it was the
day of the Preparation, and the sabbath
drew on.' Both Luke and Matthew speak
of ' a man ' named Joseph, though they

OF ST. MARK 5

use different Greek words, Mark having
nothing to correspond. Both Luke and
Matthew say he was 4 named ' Joseph, while
Mark introduces him at once as Joseph.
Luke and Matthew say ' this man ' went to
Pilate, Mark giving no pronoun. They
agree, too, in using the participle where
Mark has the finite verb followed by ' and.'
They agree also in using the same form of
compound verb, ' went to,' Mark employing a
verb with a different prefix, ' went in.' Luke
and Matthew have ' to Pilate,' the dative,
but Mark ' unto Pilate,' using a preposition.
Both Luke and Matthew omit the incident
of Pilate marvelling whether Jesus were
already dead, his calling for the centurion
and his report, narrated by Mark. They
both likewise make no mention of Joseph
buying a linen cloth. Matthew and Luke
speak of taking ' the body,' ' it,' while
Mark says ' him.' Luke and Matthew say
Joseph ' wrapped ' the body, but Mark
that he ' wound ' him in a linen cloth.
Again Matthew, like Luke, says c it,' but Mark
6 him.' Luke says the tomb was one ' where
never man had yet lain,' and with this
Matthew agrees, though saying only that
it was ' new.' Mark says nothing to this
effect. Luke says the women beheld 'the

6 THE SECONDARY CHARACTER

tomb,' and Matthew that they sat over
against ' the sepulchre,' Mark making no
mention of the grave at this point. Luke
says the women 'returned,' and Matthew
that Joseph ' departed,' from the sepulchre,
Mark having nothing to correspond. Luke
and Matthew begin the account of the
women's visit to the sepulchre with one con-
junction, 'but,' Mark with another, 'and.'
Luke and Matthew both say the women
' came ' (aorist) to the tomb ; Mark has the
historic present, ' come.' Luke and Matthew
both use a remarkable verb, properly meaning
to dawn, for the approach of another day,
in Luke the sabbath, in Matthew the first
day of the week (Luke xxiii. 54, Matt, xxviii.
1) ; Mark, however, avoids it. Luke says
the women's visit was ' at early dawn,' and
with this Matthew agrees, ' as it began to
dawn.' Mark speaks of a later moment,
'when the sun was risen.' Luke and
Matthew introduce the angelic vision with
the word, 'behold,' but it is not in Mark.
Luke says the angels' apparel was ' lightning-
like,' and Matthew that the angel's appear-
ance was ' as lightning,' Mark having nothing
to correspond. Luke says the women were
' afraid,' and Matthew speaks of the ' fear '
of the watchers. Mark merely says the

OF ST. MARK 7

women were 'amazed.' Luke says the
women ' became ' afraid, and Matthew that
the watchers ' became ' as dead men, the
verb being absent from Mark. Luke's state-
ment that the women ' bowed down their
faces to the earth,' and Matthew's that the
watchers ' became as dead men,' seem to be
merely different versions of the same thing,
as we see in the account of similar visions
in Daniel, * I fell into a deep sleep with my
face toward the ground ' (viii. 18), ' I re-
tained no strength . . . then was I fallen
into a deep sleep on my face, with my face
toward the ground ' (x. 8-9) ; Mark has
nothing to correspond. Luke and Matthew
use the aorist ' said ' to introduce the
speech of the angels, or angel, but Mark the
present, ' he saith.' In Matthew the angel
says c Fear not ye,' which agrees with
Luke's statement that the women were
' afraid ' ; Mark has ' Be not amazed.' 1 In
both Luke and Matthew the angels appeal

1 According to the ordinary text of Luke in the angels'
speech we read, ' He is not here, but is risen.' The words
are absent, however, from Codex Berne and other
authorities, and so may be an early interpolation a view
supported, as we shall see later, by other and more con-
clusive evidence so that we cannot include in our list the
fact that the order of the words is in agreement with what
we find in Matthew, ' He is not here ; for he is risen,' and
not with Mark, who has ' He is risen j he is not here.'

8 MARK'S SECONDARY CHARACTER

to our Lord's own words as prophesying
His resurrection; in Mark they are recalled
as evidence that they would see Him in
Galilee. In Luke and Matthew the angels
speak of ' the dead,' but not in Mark. Luke
says the women ' told all these things to the
eleven, and to all the rest,' and Matthew
that they ran ' to bring his disciples word,'
while Mark says ' they said nothing to any
one ; for they were afraid.'

In the seventeen verses of Luke which
we have examined we notice some thirty-
one points on which Luke agrees with
Matthew against Mark. It is surely im-
possible to explain these facts on the hypo-
thesis that Mark is the earliest gospel, and
that the other two are derived from it.
Allowing to the full the possibility of an
early assimilation of the texts of the first
and third gospels on the part of the scribes,
many of the details of agreement are such
that we still find the explanation quite
insufficient.

CHAPTER II

THE BURIAL OF OUR LORD

WE will now examine in some detail the
narratives of the burial and resurrection as
given by St. Luke, comparing them with
what we find in the other gospels, and
tracing out so far as we can the develop-
ment in the story. Luke, speaking of the
events at our Lord's death, says ' And all
his acquaintance, and the women that
followed with him from Galilee, stood afar
off, beholding these things ' (xxiii. 49), in
which we may trace reminiscences of Psalm
xxxviii. 11 and Psalm Ixxxviii. 8. Mark says
nothing about ' his acquaintance,' but gives
the names of some of the women, * And
there were also women beholding from afar :
among whom were both Mary Magdalene,
and Mary the mother of James the less and
of Joses, and Salome ; who, when he was
in Galilee, followed him, and ministered
unto him ; and many other women which

10 THE BURIAL

came up with him unto Jerusalem ' (xv. 40-
41). The Marcan account we notice not only
gives the information found in the corre-
sponding passage in Luke, but also what we
find in two other passages of that gospel.
4 He went about through cities and villages
. . . and with him the twelve, and certain
women . . . Mary that was called Magda-
lene . . . and Joanna the wife of Chuza,
Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many
others, which ministered unto them of their
substance ' (viii. 1-3), and ' He went on
before, going up to Jerusalem ' (xix. 28).
Clearly we have a conflation of several
passages of Luke, for it would be very un-
natural to explain these as derived from the
one statement of Mark. The account in
Matthew to a large extent reproduces Mark.
He notes at the beginning the fact that
there were 4 many women,' and so discards
the clause which speaks of the 4 many other
women which came up with him unto
Jerusalem,' thus agreeing with Luke. He
omits the description of James as ' the less,'
and instead of Salome mentions ' the mother
of the sons of Zebedee,' meaning probably
the same person, though not perhaps
certainly in view of the many women who
were present, and the fact that the third

OF OUR LORD 11

name in Mark, Salome, is different from
that in Luke, Joanna. In John's account,
which has points of affinity with Luke's,
though referring to an earlier moment,
during the actual crucifixion, three women
are named, and the third here is the mother
of our Lord. ' But there were standing by
the cross of Jesus his mother, and his
mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas,
and Mary Magdalene ' (xix. 25). 4 By the
cross ' does not necessarily contradict Luke's
statement that they stood ' afar off ' it
depends on the point of view but the order
of words in the Greek and the fact that we
have echoes of the psalter suggest that in
Luke the words ' afar off ' refer primarily to
* his acquaintance,' and not to the women.
That they moved farther away is very
improbable.

Luke next proceeds to tell of the good
offices of Joseph of Arimatheea. In Mark
there is added a note of time, ' And when even
was now come,' and similarly in Matthew,
but this is impossible if the words have their
natural meaning, for with the evening the
sabbath began, and no burial rites could be
performed. Mark also gives the reason for
Joseph's interposition, ' because it was the
Preparation, that is, the day before the

12 THE BURIAL

sabbath.' John gives the same reason, but
explains it at greater length. 'The Jews
therefore, because it was the Preparation,
that the bodies should not remain on the
cross upon the sabbath (for the day of that
sabbath was a high day), asked of Pilate
that their legs might be broken, and that
they might be taken away. . . . And after
these things Joseph of Arimathsea . . . asked
of Pilate that he might take away the body
of Jesus ' (xix. 31, 38). The law of Deuter-
onomy required the body of a criminal who
had been hanged to be taken down and
buried before nightfall. ' And if a man have
committed a sin worthy of death, and he
be put to death, and thou hang him on a
tree ; his body shall not remain all night
upon the tree, but thou shalt surely bury
him the same day ; for he that is hanged is
accursed of God ; that thou defile not thy
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee
for an inheritance ' (Deut. xxi. 22-3). This
rule we notice was carried out in the case
of the king of Ai (Josh. viii. 29), and the five
kings at Makkedah (Josh. x. 27). A man
crucified frequently lived two or three days.
4 Blood, it polluteth the land ' (Num. xxxv.
33), bringing the curse of God (cf. Gen. iv.
11), so that alive or dead a criminal hanging

OF OUR LORD 13

on a tree was a defilement. That a body
should remain on the cross upon the sabbath
would necessarily involve a profanation of
the sabbath, a particularly grievous offence
when the sabbath was a high day, but if
death occurred on the sabbath the con-
dition of things would be still more awkward,
for then they must either break the sabbath
and that a high day in the present in-
stanceby burying the body, or else break
the law which required the body to be buried
before nightfall. There was thus good
reason for the anxiety of the Jews that death
should occur early enough for the bodies
to be buried before the sabbath arrived.
Joseph's intervention, according to John,
would seem to have been occasioned by his
knowledge of that of the Jews, to prevent
our Lord's body from being cast into one
of the two burial places for criminals. We
have thus in John, and the same thing is
suggested in Mark, a quite reasonable ex-
planation of an incident which Luke and
likewise Matthew leaves unexplained.

Mark agrees with Luke in saying that
Joseph was a councillor, Matthew omitting
the point. Luke says he was 4 a good man
and a righteous,' which is paraphrased in
Mark as ' of honourable estate,' the Greek

14 THE BURIAL

word used being one which according to
Phrynichus, the grammarian, was in vulgar
circles synonymous with wealthy, 1 the de-
scription given in Matthew, * a rich man.'
Luke alone adds ' he had not consented to
their counsel and deed ' (xxiii. 51). According
to Mark, if his words are to be taken literally,
there was absolute unanimity with regard
to our Lord's condemnation. ; The chief
priests and the whole council sought witness
against Jesus to put him to death ' (xiv. 55),
' And they all condemned him to be worthy
of death ' (xiv. 64), while c in the morning
the chief priests with the elders and scribes,
and the whole council, held a consultation,
and bound Jesus, and carried him away,
and delivered him up to Pilate ' (xv. 1).
Matthew's account is substantially the same
(xxvi. 59, 66 ; xxvii. 1, 2). In Luke's
narrative the unanimity is limited to those
present, and we are not told, as in Mark,
that these were ' the whole council.' ' And
as soon as it was day, the assembly of the
elders of the people was gathered together,
both chief priests and scribes ; and they
led him away into their council . . . And
the whole company of them rose up, and

1 Rutherford, The New Phrynichus, cccix. p. 417 ;
Bwete, St. Marie, p. 391.

OF OUR LORD 15

brought him before Pilate (xxii. 66 ; xxiii. 1).,
In view of the attitude of the rich young
ruler (Luke xviii. 18), and Nicodemus (John
iii. 1), it is much more probable that there
were some who ' had not consented to their
counsel and deed ' than that, as Mark says,
the whole council was unanimous, though as
a matter of fact even Mark seems to contra-
dict this later when he tells us Joseph was
a councillor, unless we are to understand
that he gave his vote against our Lord, and
yet was willing not only to beg for His body,
but to prepare it for burial with his own
hands. Luke says he ' was looking for the
kingdom of God,' a description which re-
minds us of what he says of Simeon, and of
those to whom Anna spake (ii. 25, 38), one
which was applicable really to any pious
Jew. Mark likewise says he * was looking
for the kingdom of God,' but adds that he
' boldly ' went in unto Pilate. In Matthew
there is further development, and he has
become ' Jesus' disciple.' Verbally John
endorses Matthew's statement, saying that
he was ' a disciple of Jesus, but ^secretly for
fear of the Jews,' yet the qualifying clause
suggests that in the evangelist's opinion his
discipleship was not so very different from
that of those of whom he speaks elsewhere,

16 THE BURIAL

who said ' He is a good man ' yet dare not
speak openly of Him 'for fear of the Jews '
(vii. 12-13), and so much the same as that
of the ruler, who likewise called Jesus
c good ' and whom, looking upon him, Jesus
loved (Mark x. 17, 21), or the scribe of whom
Jesus said ' Thou art not far from the king-
dom of God ' (Mark xii. 34), words not very
different from those used by Luke of Joseph,
but scarcely implying that he was ' Jesus'
disciple,' to use Matthew's phrase, except
in the very broadest sense. So far as Pilate
was concerned it would require no very
great boldness on the part of a councillor,
or indeed of anybody who could put forward
a reasonable claim, to go in and beg the
body of Jesus, for the Roman government
had no quarrel with the dead, but it meant
an open confession of discipleship before the
Jews on the part of one who had approved
His teaching in secret, being afraid to take
any such step before. John's words explain
a point which Mark leaves rather ambiguous,
and the other evangelists ignore.

Luke says nothing about Pilate's attitude
to Joseph's request. Mark says, ' And Pilate
marvelled if he were already dead : and
calling unto him the centurion, he asked him
whether he had been any while dead. And

OF OUR LORD 17

when he learned it of the centurion, he
granted the corpse to Joseph' (xv. 44-45).
As crucified persons usually lingered several
days the incident is very probable, and
agrees with John's explanation of the reason
for Joseph's intervention, and with his
statement that when they came to break
the legs of Jesus they found that He was
dead already. Mark alone at this point
informs us that Joseph 'bought a linen
cloth,' which would have been impossible
if it had been literally true that ' even
was now come ' when he went to Pilate.
Matthew's addition of the adjective ' clean '
is perhaps a modification of the same
tradition. Luke continues ' And he took it
down, and wrapped it in a linen cloth, and
laid him in a tomb that was hewn in stone,
where never man had yet lain ' (xxiii. 53).
Mark uses a different word, ' wound,' but
the idea seems much the same. Luke's
statement that the tomb was ' hewn in
stone,' employing an adjective frequently
used of dressed stone, may perhaps imply
that there was masonry at the entrance,
as in the case of sepulchres which were
' built ' and ' adorned ' (Luke xi. 47-8 ;
Matt, xxiii. 29) ; the same adjective is used
in the Septuagint to translate Pisgah (Deut.

18 THE BURIAL

iv. 49 ; cf. Num. xxi. 20, xxiii. 14 ; Deut. iii.
27), which Jerome in his * Onomasticon ' ex-
plains as meaning ' abscisum,' 1 steep or
precipitous. The literal meaning of the
word, therefore, can hardly be pressed, and
it is practically a synonym for ' hewn in the
rock,' though we might perhaps translate
4 fashioned in rock,' to keep the root idea.
Mark says the tomb was ; hewn out of
rock,' probably the earliest interpretation
of Luke's adjective, but Matthew develops
the statement, and speaks of ' his own new
tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock.'
Remembering his description of Joseph as
' a rich man,' we may perhaps see the in-
fluence of Isaiah liii. 9, 4 they made his grave
. . . with the rich.' At any rate it seems
probable that we have an interpretative
addition of the evangelist, not evidence of
a different tradition. We notice that the
fourth gospel does not repeat the statement.
Luke says further that the tomb was one
6 where never man had yet lain,' suggesting
that, as was usual, it was intended for the
reception of more than one corpse, though
as yet none had been laid in it. Mark
gives no information on the point, but

1 P.L., xxiii, col. 867; cf. Eusebius's Greek text in
Lagarde, Onomastica Sacra, p. 237.

OF OUR LORD 19

Matthew says that it was 'new.' John
combines the statements of Luke and
Matthew, and says that it was ' a new tomb
wherein was never man yet laid ' (xix. 41).
Luke says nothing about any closing of the
tomb, and with this John agrees, but Mark
says Joseph c rolled a stone against the door
of the tomb ' (xv. 46), and Matthew repeats
almost the same words. It is at this point
that Luke tells us that ' it was the day of
the Preparation, and the sabbath drew on '
(xxiii. 54), not as in Mark to explain Joseph's
part in the burial, but presumably as a
reason for the choice of the new tomb and
the haste in disposing of the body. Again
John combines the two ideas, this time
those of Mark and Luke, and though he has
explained the intervention of the Jews, and
so apparently of Joseph, as due to the fact
that it was the Preparation, he is equally
clear that it was the same fact which deter-
mined the choice of the new tomb. ' Now
in the place where he was crucified there
was a garden; and in the garden a new
tomb wherein was never man yet laid.
There then because of the Jews' Preparation
(for the tomb was nigh at hand) they laid
Jesus ' (xix. 41-42). If this explanation of
the selection of a sepulchre be correct we

20 THE BURIAL

have further evidence that the statement
of Matthew that the tomb was Joseph's is
not historical. It seems probable indeed
that the tomb may have been intended
merely as a temporary, not as a final, resting-
place. This view seems implied in Mary
Magdalene's question to Jesus recorded in
the fourth gospel. ' She, supposing him to
be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou
hast borne him hence, tell me where thou
hast laid him ' (xx. 15). If it were Joseph's
tomb, and the burial intended to be final,
such a question to the gardener would surely
have been quite impossible.

Luke continues c And the women, which
had come with him out of Galilee, followed
after, and beheld the tomb, and how that
his body was laid ' (xxiii. 55). The intention
of the evangelist seems to be to provide
evidence of the reality of the burial, the
fact ' that he was buried,' as St. Paul says
(1 Cor. xv. 4), being an important item in
early Christian tradition, not to tell us that
the women watched the details of the burial.
4 The women . . . followed after,' and even
if not ' afar off ' they were probably some
distance away. If at the well of Sychar our
Lord's disciples ' marvelled that he was
speaking with a woman ' (John iv. 27), and

OF OUR LORD 21

the doctors of the law laid it down that c a
man should not salute a woman in a public
place, not even his own wife,' 1 it is clear
that a company of women would not venture
to intrude upon so important a person as
a member of the Sanhedrin even to offer
assistance. According to both Mark and
Matthew the women must have seen the
stone rolled to the door of the tomb before
they left, but Luke, as we have noticed,
says nothing of this. According to his
account as soon as the women had evidence
that our Lord's body was being buried
4 they returned,' and in the short time
1 which remained before the sabbath pre-
vented it ' prepared spices and ointments.'
Apparently Nicodemus, of whom we are not
told that he had anything to do with the
taking of our Lord's body down from the
cross, if he had appeared on the scene at
all, had not arrived with the spices of which
John speaks when the women departed
from the tomb, for had they known of these,
or expected them to be provided, they would
not have returned to make similar prepara-
tions themselves. Even if we suppose the

1 Westcott, St. John, p. 74. See Taylor, Sayings of
the Jewish Fathers; Pirqe Aboth, I. 5, p. 15 j Buxtorf,
Lexicon Chaldaicum Talmudicum et Rabbinicum, p. 1146.

22 THE BURIAL

body to have been made ready within the
court of the tomb itself, they could not
well have failed to notice the arrival of so
bulky a quantity of spices as John describes.
Mark mentions only two of ' the women,
which had come with him out of Galilee,'
spoken of by Luke, and says that ' Mary
Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses
beheld where he was laid ' (xv. 47). The
last words are evidently another version of
what St. Luke says, which we have inter-
preted as meaning that they saw that the
body was buried, and, in view of the attitude
of such high personages as Joseph to women,
whether strangers or even friends, they
cannot be interpreted differently, or as
meaning that they saw the body in the
loculus, or other place provided. Had Mark
meant this the words attributed to the angel
in the sepulchre, 4 Behold, the place where
they laid him ' (xvi. 6), would be robbed
of much of their point. The women beheld
where he was laid, that is, the position of
the tomb, which after all is the most natural
interpretation of the words. Mark mentions
Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of
Joses at this point, but we notice the absence
of Salome, who, he says, was present at the
cross. If she is to be identified with the
mother of Zebedee's children, it seems not

OF OUR LORD 23

impiobable, as is sometimes suggested, that
she went away from the cross immediately
after our Lord's death to join her son John
and the mother of Jesus, whose departure
at an earlier stage is recorded in the fourth
gospel (xix. 27). Matthew also mentions
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, but
not Salome, and says they were ' sitting over
against the sepulchre ' (xxvii. 61), which
is an elaboration of what Mark says, and
directly contradicts Luke, who says that
they went home. John says nothing at
all about the women in connexion with the
burial, not even that they were spectators,
confirming the view that they had nothing
to do with it, though they may have watched
at a distance. John alone tells us of the
part played by Nicodemus . ' And there came
also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to
him by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh
and aloes, about a hundred pound weight.
So they took the body of Jesus, and bound
it in linen cloths with the spices, as the
custom of the Jews is to bury ' (xix. 39-40).
The amount of myrrh and aloes is large,
over seventy pounds in modern weight, but
the reference to Jewish custom helps us
to understand how it was all utilised. Of
King Asa we are told 4 they buried him in
his own sepulchres, . . . and laid him in

24 THE BURIAL

the bed which was filled with sweet odours
and divers kinds of spices prepared l>y the
apothecaries' art 5 (2 Chron. xvi. 14). 'The
linen cloths ' and ' the napkin ' mentioned
in the story of the resurrection were pre-
sumably part of the provision made by
Nicodemus for use with the spices, and are
not to be identified with the 'linen cloth, 5
or sheet, in which out of reverence Joseph
wrapped the naked body of Jesus for
removal from the cross to the sepulchre.
Luke continues * And on the sabbath they
rested according to the commandment '
(xxiii. 56). The same thing is implied in
Mark's statement that it was 'when the
sabbath was past 5 that they bought spices
(xvi. 1), Matthew says that on the sabbath,
which he curiously calls ' the day after the
Preparation, 5 ' the chief priests and the
Pharisees were gathered together unto
Pilate, 5 asking him to command ' that the
sepulchre be made sure until the third day,
lest haply his disciples come and steal him
away' (xxvii. 62-64). It seems a very poor
excuse for a breach of the sabbath, for if
a guard were necessary it should have been
appointed on Friday afternoon. At that
time, however, the thought that His disciples
might come and steal the body never seems
to have occurred to them, their one anxiety

OF OUR LORD 25

being to get rid of our Lord's body before
sunset to avoid a profanation of the sabbath
even by inadvertence, a very minor breach
of the law compared with that involved in
their appeal to Pilate, where the offence
was deliberate and without the excuse of
necessity. If our Lord's body had been
consigned to one of the common graves for
criminals, it would have been comparatively
easy for the disciples to steal it, and yet on
the Friday afternoon such a speedy burial
was all they seemed to desire or asked of
Pilate. Neither do they seem to have raised
any objection to the body being handed
over to Joseph, who, if not known to be a
disciple, was obviously a friend, though
this was surely playing into the hands of
those who would counterfeit a resurrection.
Their desire for security against theft, if
historical, must have been an afterthought,
and one which involved an entire change of
policy in a night. The story forms one of a
number peculiar to the first gospel in which
there is a distinct bias in favour of the
marvellous, as we see in the accounts of the
earthquakes at the death and resurrection
(xxvii. 51, xxviii. 2), and it is difficult not to
believe that we are dealing with a legendary
accretion. Matthew himself seems to have
recognised one of the objections to its

26 THE BURIAL OF OUR LORD

historicity, but he hardly removes it, though
he makes it less obvious, by calling the
sabbath ' the day after the Preparation.'
For details of the story the author seems
to have been influenced by two Old Testa-
ment narratives, each concerned with the
rolling of a stone or stones to the mouth
of a cave or pit. The first is the story of
the five kings who hid in the cave at Makke-
dah. ' And Joshua said, Roll great stones
unto the mouth of the cave, and set men
by it for to keep them ' (Josh. x. 18). The
second is the story of Daniel in the lions'
den, ' And a stone was brought, and laid
upon the mouth of the den ; and the king
sealed it with his own signet, and with the
signet of his lords ' (Dan. vi. 17). According
to Matthew also it was on the afternoon of
the sabbath, as the first day of the week was
approaching, if we interpret the Greek verb
used as in Luke, that the women came to
see the sepulchre, ' late on the sabbath day,
as it began to draw towards the first day of
the week ' (xxviii. 1). Probably, however,
the evangelist has misunderstood his source,
and for the moment at any rate seems to
have thought that with Jews, as with
Gentiles, a new day began not with the
darkness but with the dawn.

CHAPTER III

THE VISIT OF THE WOMEN TO THE TOMB

LUKE, as we have seen, says that the women
prepared the spices on the Friday afternoon
after their return from the sepulchre, before
the sabbath began, but Mark on Saturday
evening after the sabbath was over, pre-
sumably because, as he says the women
stayed at the tomb until the burial was
completed and a stone rolled to the door,
there was no time left for anything after
their return from the sepulchre before the
beginning of the sabbath. We read : 4 And
when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene,
and Mary the mother of James, and Salome,
bought spices, that they might come and
anoint him ' (xvi. 1). We notice the re-
appearance of Salome, who according to Mark
was absent on the Friday afternoon when
Luke tells us the spices were purchased.
The purchase of the spices in Mark, however,
is merely preliminary to the visit of the

28 VISIT OF THE WOMEN

women to the tomb on the Sunday morning,
and what the evangelist is really anxious
that we shall understand is that she was
present on that occasion, though according
to Luke, as when he tells us the women
who ministered to Jesus, the third name is
Joanna, for speaking of those who came
to the sepulchre he says * they were Mary
Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother
of James ' (xxiv. 10). Luke is quite definite
in his statement of the reason for the visit
of the women to the tomb on the Sunday
morning : ' On the first day of the week, at
early dawn, they came unto the tomb,
bringing the spices which they had prepared '
(xxiv. 1). According to Mark the purpose
is the same, but in Matthew, presumably
because his story of the guard has made
any such intention manifestly impossible, they
came simply ' to see the sepulchre.' Accord-
ing to the Talmud it was customary to visit
the corpse in the tomb until the third day
when, corruption having set in, there could be
no doubt that the soul had left the body and
the person was dead. We read, ' They go out
to the cemetery and make inquisition concern-
ing the dead for three days, and are not
deterred lest it seem an Amorite practice.' 1

1 Semachoth, viii. 1. Quotation kindly supplied by
Dr. Abrahams.

TO THE TOMB 29

It is not till he speaks of the visit to the
sepulchre that Luke mentions the stone for
the first time, ' And they found the stone
rolled away from the tomb ' (xxiv. 2). The
same is true in the fourth gospel. Nothing
is said about it until we are told that Mary
Magdalene ' seeth the stone taken away from
the tomb ' (xx. 1). John's words agree
with those he uses when speaking of the
grave of Lazarus, and probably the tomb
was of a similar type in both cases, both
being private burial places. We read :
4 Jesus . . . cometh to the tomb. Now it
was a cave, and a stone lay against it.
Jesus saith, Take ye away the stone . . .
So they took away the stone 5 (John xi.
38-39, 41).

Mark's account is very detailed. 4 And
very early on the first day of the week,
they come to the tomb, when the sun was
risen. And they were saying among them-
selves, Who shall roll us away the stone
from the door of the tomb? And looking
up, they see that the stone is rolled back :
for it was exceeding great ' (xvi. 2-4). Luke
says ' they found the stone rolled away,'
but in Mark the emphasis is on what they
saw, ' looking up, they see that the stone is
rolled back.' The reason for his statement

30 VISIT OF THE WOMEN

that they came 'when the sun was risen'
is now apparent, the other evangelists agree-
ing that it was before daybreak, ' at early
dawn ' according to Luke, 'as it began to
dawn ' according to Matthew, and according
to John ' while it was yet dark.' As we
read Mark's account of the conversation
of the women we are bound to ask, Is it
credible ? The women, we are told, had
been looking on when a stone, which was
'very great,' was rolled to the door of the
tomb. The evangelist evidently intends us
to understand that to move it was beyond
the power of three women, and he tells us
that this was their own opinion. They had
a whole day in which to think over their
plans with regard to what they wished to do
to the Lord's body, they went to the trouble
and expense of buying spices, they rose very
early on the first day of the week to bring
them to the tomb, all without thinking of the
difficulty of moving the stone and arrang-
ing with someone to move it for them. It
seems very improbable. In view of the
silence of both Luke and John with respect
to the closing of the sepulchre it would appear
not unreasonable to suppose that the stone
had never been rolled to the mouth of the
tomb at all, at any rate not since the work-

TO THE TOMB 31

men who prepared the tomb and stone
departed. The words quoted from the
Talmud are sometimes interpreted as im-
plying that graves were ordinarily left un-
closed for three days, but however that
may be, if, as seems not unlikely, the
sepulchre in this case was regarded only
as a temporary resting-place, this would be
exactly what we should expect, for even
if the labour was not great, Joseph would
perhaps hesitate to close someone else's
tomb. Luke's words do not necessarily
imply that the stone had been rolled away
recently, or indeed at all, apart from the
trial closing by the masons who fitted it.
The emphasis is on the fact not on the
action which produced it, as frequently with
verbs of similar meaning in the perfect
tense. 1 It is possible that the evangelist,
and even the women themselves, whether
the tomb was regarded as a temporary or
permanent resting-place, expected that the
tomb would be found closed, but this would
surely occasion no serious difficulty, for
Mark's statement that the stone was ' very
great ' is probably only an interpretative
addition for purposes of edification, like the

1 Cf. 1 Cor. vii. 27 b, where the reference can hardly
be to widowers only.

32 VISIT OF THE WOMEN

conversation of the women, of which indeed
it is the basis. Luke says nothing about
the size of the stone, and it is very unlikely
that it was unusually large. There is no
suggestion of difficulty in moving the stone
in the account of the raising of Lazarus.
It was probably a circular disc, such as was
usually provided for a tomb, and this is
perhaps implied in Mark's expression ' rolled
back,' though possibly not in ' rolled away '
which all the synoptic gospels use. As a
rule such a stone would be no more than four
feet in diameter, and, rolling in the groove
provided, could be moved with no great
difficulty by one man, and so could scarcely
be regarded as an insuperable obstacle by
three women. The customary visiting of
the corpse for three days of which we have
spoken, unless as some suppose the grave
was left unclosed, implies the same thing.
A mediaeval commentary on the words
quoted from the Talmud above says, c This
custom only applied in ancient times when
burial was in the kokim, and it was easy to
raise the coffin lid.' 1 Though the reference
to the coffin lid is an anachronism, the writer
is surely correct in assuming that such a

1 Turim. Tur Yoreh Deah, 394. Quotation kindly
supplied by Dr. Abrahams.

TO THE TOMB 33

visit to the corpse as the Talmud describes
would only be possible when the body was
easily accessible, which he concludes was the
case in the kokim, and so, of course, in other
similar burial places. Mark says that Joseph
4 rolled a stone against the door of the tomb.'
' A stone ' is a very unnatural way of
speaking of the stone specially provided for
the sepulchre. Mark's phraseology, how-
ever, reminds us of that of the story of
Jacob at the well. 'And he looked, and
behold a. well in the field, . . . and the
stone upon the well's mouth was great . . .
and they rolled the stone from the well's
mouth, . . . and put the stone again upon
the well's mouth in its place. . . . And he
said . . . Water ye the sheep. . . . And they
said, We cannot, until all the flocks be
gathered together, and they roll the stone
from the well's mouth . . . And it came to
pass . . . that Jacob went near, and rolled
the stone from the well's mouth ' (Gen. xxix.
2, 3, 7, 8, 10). In the Greek the first time
the stone is mentioned there is no article,
and it is really c a stone,' though it cannot
well be so translated in English. The Greek
word translated * roll away ' is found only
in this passage in the Septuagint, and in the
New Testament only in the synoptic gospels

34 VISIT OF THE WOMEN

in the accounts of the resurrection. 'And
he looked and behold ' reminds us of ' And
looking up, they see,' with the redundant
participle. ' The stone . . . was great ' is
exactly reproduced in * the stone ... it
was great exceedingly,' though the identity
of expression is not so obvious in the English.
We thus get also an explanation of the
awkwardness of Mark's Greek which other-
wise it is not easy to find. ' They will roll
away the stone from the mouth of the well,'
as it is in the Septuagint, apart from changes
in the preposition and nouns necessitated
by the circumstances, is repeated even to
the order of words in c Who shall roll us
away the stone from the door of the tomb ? '
In both accounts expression is given to the
difficulty of rolling away the stone, though
in Genesis it is properly moral rather than
physical. The same story seems also to
have influenced Mark's earlier statement,
' he rolled a stone against the door of the
tomb,' for there likewise we notice a repro-
duction of phraseology from the narrative in
Genesis. It seems difficult to resist the con-
clusion that the whole story of the stone
as given in the second gospel is an inter-
pretative expansion of the simple statement
of Luke that when the women arrived at

TO THE TOMB 35

the sepulchre they found the stone rolled
away. The influence of the story of Jacob
can hardly be doubted, and it would have
full scope in oral transmission. Matthew
continues the process of development. Of
Joseph he says ' he rolled a great stone to
the door of the tomb ' (xxvii. 60). Here
we seem to notice the influence of another
Old Testament incident, of Saul at Mich-
mash, 'And he said . . . Roll a great stone
to me this day ' (1 Sam. xiv. 33). Besides
the similar use of the adjective ' great ' to
describe the stone, both Matthew and the
Septuagint employ the dative where Mark
has a preposition with the accusative. To
account for the removal of the stone Matthew
introduces a mighty portent, 'And behold,
there was a great earthquake; for an angel
of the Lord descended from heaven, and
came and rolled away the stone, and sat
upon it' (xxviii. 2). The passage is quite
in the style of other sections peculiar to
Matthew, full of the miraculous and Old
Testament phraseology. An earthquake is
a common apocalyptical phenomenon. We
read in Ezekiel ' In that day there shall be
a great earthquake . . . and all the men
that are upon the face of the earth, shall
quake at my presence ' (xxxviii. 19-20), and

36 VISIT OF THE WOMEN

in agreement with the prophecy Matthew
also adds 'the watchers did quake.' The
exact words of the evangelist occur no less
than six times in the New Testament, so
that c there was a great earthquake ' was
evidently a familiar way of describing the
intervention of the supernatural (Matt. viii.
24, xxviii. 2 ; Acts xvi. 26 ; Rev. vi. 12, xi. 13,
xvi. 18). 'The angel of the Lord' is a
common Old Testament expression to de-
scribe a manifestation of God in personal
form, appearing also four times in Matthew
(i. 20, 24 ; ii. 13, 19), twice in Luke (i. 11 ;
ii. 9) in the birth narratives, and four times
in Acts (v. 19 ; viii. 26 ; xii, 7, 23), in
addition to the present passage. c The angel
of the Lord ' called unto Abraham twice
* from heaven ' (Gen. xxii. 11, 15), ' The Lord
descended ' upon Sinai (Exod. xxxiv. 5), and
4 The angel of the Lord came and sat ' under
the oak at Ophrah (Jud. vi. 11), all suggesting
the phraseology of the present passage. The
influence of the story of Jacob at the well
appears in Matthew as well as in Mark, the
five Greek words for ' and came and rolled
away the stone ' being repeated without the
slightest modification even in order from a
passage already quoted (in another trans-
lation), 4 Jacob came and rolled away the

TO THE TOMB 37

stone from the well's mouth.' Though c the
angel of the Lord came and sat ' under the
oak at Ophrah, as the words immediately
preceding ' and sat upon it ' are taken
from the story of Jacob at the well, it seems
not unlikely that in these last words we have
also a reminiscence of the similar story of
Moses at the well in which, according to the
Septuagint, we are told that ' he sat upon ' it
(Exod. ii. 15). The account given in Matthew
is exactly what a person steeped in the
Old Testament would imagine as an explana-
tion of the fact that the stone was found
rolled away, but it can hardly be regarded
as in the strict sense history. The evidence
indeed seems to point rather to the con-
clusion that the tomb had never been closed,
and that the stones in Mark and Matthew
are interpretative developments, or from
another point of view, legendary accretions,
such as with oral transmission would be
inevitable. The reason for the rolling away
of the stone in view of the nature of our
Lord's resurrection body has frequently been
a difficulty, and the favourite explanation
has been that of Bishop Horsley, that it
'was not to let the Lord out, but to let
the women in.' l Such a view, however, is
1 Nine Sermons on ... OUT Lord's Resurrection, p. 202.

38 VISIT OF THE WOMEN

unnecessary when the narratives are critically
examined. It is interesting to note further
developments in the story of the stone. In
* Codex Bezae ' and some other manuscripts
we are told at this point in Matthew that
Joseph, ' when he had laid him, placed at
the tomb a stone which scarcely twenty
men could roll.' In the * Gospel of Peter ' the
idea is still further elaborated : c There came
elders and scribes to the sepulchre and
having rolled a great stone with the cen-
turion and soldiers, all who were there
together, placed it at the door of the
tomb.' 1 This account is especially remark-
able as containing a tradition in exact agree-
ment with what we have concluded on critical
grounds, that Joseph left the tomb unclosed,
though of course we need not believe that
the centurion and soldiers, elders and scribes
combined to remedy the omission, rolling so
great a stone to the entrance.

Luke continues, 'And they entered in,
and found not the body (of the Lord Jesus) '
(xxiv. 3). Mark gives the first part only,
' And entering into the tomb ' (xvi. 5), but
says nothing about their not finding the
body, and presumably they do not realise

1 Swete, Gospel of St. Peter, chap. viii. p. 26 ; cf. Lake,
Resurrection of Jesus Christ, p. 152.

TO THE TOMB 39

that the body is absent until the angel
speaks and points it out. John does not
actually say that they failed to find the
body, but it is presupposed in the report of
Mary Magdalene to Peter, ' They have taken
away the Lord out of the tomb, and we
know not where they have laid him ' (xx. 2),
and the similar words to the angel in the
sepulchre. John evidently supports Luke's
statement that the women noticed the
absence of the body before the appearance
of the angels. We notice that Luke repeats
the tradition he incorporates in his text in
the words attributed to the two disciples
on the way to Emmaus. ' Moreover certain
women of our company amazed us, having
been early at the tomb ; and when they
found not his body, they came, saying, that
they had also seen a vision of angels, which
said that he was alive ' (xxiv. 22-3).

CHAPTER IV

ECSTASIES RECORDED BY ST. LUKE

WE have now to consider one of the most
difficult incidents of all those which happened
on the first Easter morning, what the two
disciples called the ' vision of angels.' If
we compare it with other similar accounts
it is clear that it was a vision received in a
state of ecstasy. Such visions occupy an
important position in both the Old Testa-
ment and the New, and indeed in the history ^
of religion wellnigh at all times and in all
places. In the Old Testament many such
visions are recorded. They were specially
characteristic of prophets (Joel ii. 28, etc.),
and were vouchsafed to them frequently
at their call, but not seldom at other times
besides. We note them particularly in the
case of Balaam (Num. xxiv. 16), Micaiah
(1 Kings xxii. 19), Isaiah (Is. vi. 1), Jeremiah
(Jer. i. 11, 13), Ezekiel (Ezek. i. 1, etc.),
Amos (Amos vii. 1, 4, 7 ; viii. 1 ; ix. 1), and

ECSTASIES IN ST. LUKE 41

Zechariah (Zech. i. 8). The book of Daniel
is in a different category, but a large part
of it is taken up with a description of such
visions. In the New Testament, after the
vision of the day of Pentecost, Peter declares
that Christianity is a religion of visions, and
that the prophecy of Joel (ii. 28) is fulfilled
(Acts ii. 17). Paul glories in such c visions
and revelations of the Lord ' (2 Cor. xii.
1-5). Several of those vouchsafed to both
Peter and Paul are recorded, but we find
also descriptions of those granted to various
other people. We notice them particularly
in the writings of St. Luke, but also else-
where. Of visions in ecstasy Luke describes
no less than thirteen apart from visions
received by night, which perhaps are not
really to be distinguished any more than
in the case of the Old Testament prophets,
and a few of doubtful type which from what
we are told might belong to one group or
the other. Visions in ecstasy were granted
to Zacharias in the temple, to Mary, to the
shepherds, at our Lord's baptism, at the
transfiguration, at the sepulchre, at the
ascension, at Pentecost, to St. Stephen, to
St. Paul at his conversion, to Cornelius, to
Peter on the housetop, and to Paul in the
temple at Jerusalem. The night visions are

42 ECSTASIES RECORDED

all St. Paul's, and we notice his vision of the
man of Macedonia, of our Lord at Corinth,
and at Jerusalem, and of the angel of God
on the ship. Of the visions more indefinite
in type we note the angel of the Lord who
spake to Philip, the vision of Ananias, and
of St. Paul in which he saw Ananias, and
if the text is authentic, as seems not im-
probable from both internal and external
evidence, the angel who appeared to our
Lord in Gethsemane. The appearances of
the angel to the apostles and to St. Peter
in prison ought not perhaps to be regarded
as supernatural, though at the time they
were so understood. Luke's descriptions of
these ecstatic visions are remarkable for the
frequent recurrence of certain characteristic
ideas and phrases, many of which, however,
are by no means uncommon in the accounts
of similar experiences recorded elsewhere,
as even a slight acquaintance with mystical
literature makes plain. The story of the
transfiguration as given by Luke is par-
ticularly interesting from this point of view,
for in it the details characteristic of an
ecstasy are given with a fullness not found
in the other New Testament accounts. We
read : ' Now Peter and they that were with
him were weighed down with sleep, but

BY ST. LUKE 43

remaining fully awake, they saw his glory '
(ix. 32). Similarly of Balaam we read 4 He
saith . . . which seeth the vision of the
Almighty, falling down, and having his eyes
open ' (Num. xxiv. 4, 16). In the Septuagint
instead of ' falling down ' we find ' in sleep,'
a common method of describing a trance
or ecstasy, as we notice in the case of
Abraham (Gen. xv. 12), and Daniel (viii. 18 ;
x. 9). St. Teresa gives an exactly similar
description of a state of ecstasy. ' She is
thoroughly awake to God, though fast asleep
as to worldly things and to ourselves.' 1 A
study of the various types of ecstasy de-
scribed in St. Teresa's ' Interior Castle,' and
similar works, 2 is of the greatest value for a
proper understanding of the New Testament
examples. St. Teresa speaks only of visions
vouchsafed to individuals, but it seems
beyond question that an ecstasy may take
hold of a group of people at the same time,
so that they may see a vision in common, 3

1 Interior Castle: The Fifth Mansions (ed. Dalton),
chap. i. p. 97. Dalton's is the translation usually quoted
in these pages, but occasionally another is preferred.

2 See also James, The Varieties of Religious Experience j
and Poulain, The Graces of Interior Prayer.

3 Summing up the evidence Schmiedel says, ' That in
circumstances of general excitement and highly strung
expectation visions are contagious, and that others easily
perceive that which at first had been seen by only one,

44 ECSTASIES RECORDED

and this was the case we are told in several
of the examples Luke describes. A detailed
study of the instances of ecstasy in the New
Testament would be interesting, but here
we can only notice the occurrence of the
most characteristic mystical phraseology.
The vision took place during prayer, the
most usual occasion, according to St. Teresa
and other ecstatics, at our Lord's baptism,
at the transfiguration, in the case of Cornelius,
of Peter on the housetop, and of Paul in the
temple at Jerusalem, the same thing also
being suggested in the case of Zacharias.
Heaven is said to have been opened at
our Lord's baptism, in the visions of St.
Stephen and St. Peter, as in those of
Ezekiel (i. 1), and St. John the Divine
(Rev. xix. 11), the same thing being implied
at the ascension, at Pentecost, and at the
conversion of St. Paul. The vision is of
'two men ' at the transfiguration, and at the
sepulchre, and of ' a man ' to Cornelius. At

is, in view of the accumulated evidence, a fact not to
be denied ' (Encyclopedia Biblica, iv. col. 4083-4). The
suggestion, however, that one person communicates the
details of his vision to the rest is normally impossible in
an ecstasy. Except when the ecstasy is incomplete,, as
apparently with St. Stephen, there is an entire alienation
of the sensible faculties, and a person is quite unable to
impart the nature of his vision to another until the rapture
is over.

BY ST. LUKE 45

the sepulchre and in the case of Cornelius
they are also spoken of as angels, while to
Zacharias, to Mary, and to the shepherds the
vision is said to be of angels. At the trans-
figuration, at the sepulchre, at the ascension,
and in the vision of Cornelius the men
appear in white and shining garments.
' His garment seems like the finest linen,' 1
says St. Teresa of one seen in a vision.
There is a manifestation of glory to the
shepherds, at the transfiguration, to St.
Stephen, and to St. Paul, and it is suggested
at the sepulchre, at the ascension, at Pente-
cost, and in the vision of Cornelius. St.
Teresa describes what is seen as a ' glorious
image,' ' its lustre is, as it were, a transfused
light, and, like that of the sun, covered with
something as beautiful and as bright as a
diamond, if it could be made so.' l The
position in which the visitant is seen, or the
manner of his advent, is usually described
by the verb ' stand,' or one of its compounds,
the exact form of the word found in the
accounts of the visions of the shepherds
and of the women at the sepulchre (cf.
Acts xii. 7) being that used in classical
literature for similar appearances, other
forms being employed in the description

1 The Sixth Mansions, chap. ix. p. 186.

46 ECSTASIES RECORDED

of the vision of Zacharias, of the trans-
figuration, of the ascension, of Stephen, and
of Cornelius. In the vision of Zacharias,
at the transfiguration, at Pentecost, and at
the conversion of St. Paul the word
4 appeared * is used. To Zacharias the angel
appears on the ' right ' side of the altar of
incense, to Stephen our Lord appears on the
4 right ' hand of God, and according to Mark
the angel in the sepulchre is seated on the
4 right ' side. In the vision of Zechariah
Satan is seen standing at the 4 right ' hand
of Joshua (Zech. iii. 1, but cf. Ps. cix. 6).
In the apocalyptic passages of the New Testa-
ment the ' right ' hand of God is the position
of the exalted Christ, or Son of man, in
accordance with the Psalm, ' Sit thou at
my right hand ' (ex. 1), and in the visions
of the Apocalypse it is always the * right '
hand which is noted (Rev. i. 16, 17, 20 ;
ii. 1 ; v. 1, 7 ; x. 5 ; xiii. 16), never the
left, just as in the vision of Enoch it is by
the 4 right ' hand that Michael seizes him
(Ixxi. 3). Speaking of a vision of our Lord,
St. Teresa likewise tells us 'she saw Him
on her right hand,' l though, in contrast, in
other visions she says she saw St. Peter and
St. Paul, and one of the cherubim on her

1 The Sixth Mansions, chap. vi. p. 180.

BY ST. LUKE 47

left. 1 At the ascension, and in the visions
of Stephen, Cornelius, and Peter on the
housetop those in the ecstasy are said to
have 4 gazed ' upon the vision, verbs of seeing
being naturally prominent in anything which
can be called a vision, whether scriptural or
otherwise. At the transfiguration and the
ascension a cloud appears, as in the visions
of Ezekiel (i. 4 ; x. 4), Daniel (vii. 13), the
Apocalypse (x. 1 ; xi. 12 ; xiv. 14-16), in the
apocalyptical passages of the gospels, and
generally in descriptions of the manifesta-
tion of God. A voice is heard at our Lord's
baptism, at the transfiguration, at Pentecost,
by St. Paul at his conversion, and by St.
Peter, as in the vision of Ezekiel (iii. 12), and
frequently in the visions of the Apocalypse,
and in ecstatic visions very generally.
Zacharias, Mary, and the women at the
sepulchre were troubled at the vision.
Zacharias, Mary, the shepherds, the apostles
at the transfiguration, the women at the
tomb, and Cornelius were afraid. St. Teresa
says ' the presence of such surpassing majesty
inspires the soul with great fear,' and that
the vision ' disturbs all the powers and senses
with great terror.' 2 The term ' vision ' (not

1 Life, chap. xxix. 6, 16 pp. 261, 266.

2 The Sixth Mansions, chap. ix. pp. 186, 188.

48 ECSTASIES IN ST. LUKE

always the same Greek word) is applied in
Luke to the appearance of the angel to
Zacharias, of the two men at the tomb, of
Jesus to St. Paul at his conversion, of the
angel to Cornelius, and of the vessel full of
unclean things to Peter on the housetop,
and in Matthew to the transfiguration.
Peter on the housetop and Paul in the
temple at Jerusalem are said to have been
in an ecstasy, while according to Mark an
ecstasy held the women at the sepulchre.

i

CHAPTER V

THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD

THE significance of certain of the visions
recorded by Luke must now be examined at
length. At first sight it might be supposed
that the vision vouchsafed at our Lord's
baptism was to Jesus alone, and the words
4 he saw ' of Mark and Matthew support
such a conclusion. Luke's account, however,
is more impersonal, and the descent of the
Holy Ghost ' in a bodily form, as a dove,
upon him ' suggests the point of view of a
second person, and, if so, presumably of
John the Baptist. In the fourth gospel we
are told quite plainly that this was the case :
1 John bare witness, saying, I have beheld
the Spirit descending as a dove out of
heaven ; and it abode upon him ' (i. 32).
Luke continues, ' A voice came out of heaven,
Thou art my Son, the beloved ; in thee I am
well pleased ' (iii. 22). We can hardly fail
to notice an echo of Isaiah xlii. 1, ' Behold

E

50 THE BAPTISM

my servant, whom I uphold ; my chosen, in
whom my soul delighteth.' The Greek word
for 4 servant ' may equally be translated
4 child,' and so could be regarded as a
synonym for ' son.' ' Behold the blood of
the covenant ' (Exod. xxiv. 8) of the Old
Testament becomes in the Greek of the
New ' This is the blood of the covenant '
(Heb. ix. 20), and so quite reasonably
4 Behold my servant ' or 4 child ' might
appear as 'This is my son,' the form the
saying actually takes in Matthew and at
the transfiguration, or, if the second person
is employed, 'Thou art my son,' which
would reproduce Psalm ii. 7. Quoting Isaiah
xlii. 1 in another place (xii. 18), Matthew
renders the Hebrew for ' my chosen ' as ' my
beloved,' evidently regarding the two ex-
pressions as equivalent, an idea confirmed
by the fact that Luke gives * the chosen '
at the transfiguration where Mark and
Matthew have ' the beloved.' In the same
passage Matthew also substitutes 4 is well
pleased ' for 4 delighteth,' so that the con-
nexion between the saying and Isaiah xlii. 1
is beyond question. 1 These words of Isaiah
are part of the description of the ideal
servant of Jehovah, such a one as He would

1 See Robinson, Ephesians, pp. 229-33.

OF OUR LORD 51

choose, and in whom He would be well
pleased, which is set before His actual
servant Israel for a pattern and encourage-
ment. John the Baptist evidently realised
the quotation from Isaiah when he greeted
Jesus with the words, 'Behold the Lamb
of God, which beareth the sin of the world '
(John i. 29). They are taken from another
servant passage, Isaiah lii. 13 liii. 12.
' Behold, my servant,' ' as a lamb that is led
to the slaughter,' ' he bare the sin of many.'
According to the fourth gospel John said
further : ' I have seen, and have borne
witness that this is the Son of God ' (i. 34).
This is not a late Christologieal statement,
as is often supposed, but a reference to the
saying of the voice from heaven in which the
servant of Jehovah is the son of God. It is
interesting to compare the words of John
with a passage in the book of Wisdom which
is clearly based upon the servant passages of
Isaiah and quite plainly identifies the servant
of Jehovah as His son: 'He ... nameth
himself servant of the Lord ... He is
grievous unto us even to behold . . . And
he vaunteth that God is his father . . . For
if the righteous man is God's son, he will
uphold him . . . With outrage and torture
let us put him to the test, that we may learn

52 THE BAPTISM

his gentleness, and may prove his patience
under wrong. Let us condemn him to a
shameful death ' (ii. 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 ;
cf. Is. xlii. 1 ; Hi. 13 ; liii. 3, 7, 8, 11, 12).

It is clear that Jesus likewise understood
the significance of the voice from heaven
and the reference to Isaiah, and applies the
prophet's words to Himself, what the prophet
says both of the ideal servant and of the
real, as also of himself, as he attempts to
realise the picture of the ideal in his own
life and work. ' I have put my Spirit upon
him ' (xlii. 1), Jehovah had said of His ser-
vant, and it was fulfilled in the descent of
the Holy Ghost upon Jesus at His baptism.
Returning in the power of the Spirit into
Galilee He recognises a description of His
own work in the passage He reads in the
synagogue at Nazareth, ' The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me, because he anointed me
to preach good tidings to the poor . . .'
(Luke iv. 18). It is from the description of
the servant that He gained the conviction,
so frequently expressed, that He too must
suffer if He is to perform His work : ' The Son
of man must suffer many things ' (Luke ix.
22), ' And all the things that are written by
the prophets shall be accomplished unto the
Son of man ' (Luke xviii. 31).

OF OUR LORD 53

John the Baptist was steeped in the
prophecies which bear the name of Isaiah.
Practically all his sayings are traceable in
either substance or phraseology to this
source, so that it is natural that he should
understand the voice from heaven at our
Lord's baptism simply in terms of this book.
Whatever may be the truth about our Lord
4 having never learned,' it is plain that
somehow or other He had gained a know-
ledge of ' letters ' (John vii. 15), and par-
ticularly of the book of Enoch, which though
composite in origin had apparently reached
its present form in His days. We must
note certain passages which have a bearing
on our present discussion. c And I asked
the angel who went with me and shewed me
all the hidden things, concerning that Son
of Man, who he was, and whence he was,
(and) why he went with the Head of Days ?
And he answered and said unto me : This is
the Son of Man who hath righteousness,
with whom dwelleth righteousness ... Be-
cause the Lord of Spirits hath chosen him . . .
And he shall be the light of the Gentiles,
and the hope of those who are troubled
of heart ... In these days down-cast in
countenance shall the kings of the earth
have become . . . For they have denied

54 THE BAPTISM

the Lord of Spirits and His Anointed . . .
And he shall judge the secret things . . .
For he is the Elect One before the Lord of
Spirits according to His good pleasure . . .
And one portion of them shall look on
the other, and they shall be terrified . . .
When they see that Son of Man sitting
on the throne of his glory . . . And the
righteous and elect shall be saved on that
day . . . And the Lord of Spirits shall abide
over them, and with that Son of Man shall
they eat and lie down and rise up for ever
and ever . . . For I and My Son will be
united with them for ever ' (xlvi. 2, 3 ;
xlviii. 4, 8, 10 ; xlix. 4 ; Ixii. 5, 13, 14 ; cv. 2). 1
We notice the references to Isaiah, ' my
Son,' ' the Elect One ' or ' the Chosen,'
' according to His good pleasure,' the three
points of Isaiah xlii. 1 contained in the saying
of the voice from heaven at our Lord's
baptism. 2 We recognise also allusions to
other phrases in, or connected with, the
servant passages of Isaiah, ' My righteous
servant shall make many righteous ' (liii. 11),
' I the Lord have called thee in righteous-
ness, ... for a light of the Gentiles ' (xlii. 6),

1 Charles, The Boole of Enoch, pp. 86-8, 93-6, 123-5,
262-3.

2 Cf. Eph. i. 5-6.

OF OUR LORD 55

'The Lord hath anointed me ... to bind
up the brokenhearted ' (Ixi. 1). We note,
too, the references to Psalm ii. ' The kings
of the earth set themselves . . . against the
Lord, and against his anointed ' (2) ; ' The
Lord said unto me, Thou art my son' (7).
The servant of Jehovah is recognised as
God's Son (Is. xlii. 1 ; Ps. ii. 7), the Son of
Man spoken of by Daniel (vii. 13), and the
anointed of the Lord, or the Christ, this
being the first time that the technical use
of this term is found in literature. What
are at first sight contradictory conceptions
are thus combined. There can be no reason-
able doubt that our Lord understood the
saying of the voice from heaven not only in
accordance with the ideas of the prophecies
of Isaiah, but also as these were developed
and combined with other ideas in the book
of Enoch. From the time of His baptism,
therefore, Jesus regarded Himself as both
the Servant, or Child, of God Who should
suffer, and the Christ, the Son of God and
the Son of man, Who should reign. It is the
fact that He was conscious of Himself as
being the Son of God in the fuller sense which
gives point to the story of the temptations,
whereby He put aside the idea of a public
manifestation of His messiahship and the

56 THE BAPTISM

low views of popular expectation. The
difference between the Baptist's estimate of
Jesus and that of those who were admitted
to intimate relations with Him is very re-
markable. To John He is the Son of God
and Servant of Jehovah Who, as Isaiah had
prophesied, would restore true religion to
the world, both to Israel and to the Gentiles,
and thus prepare the way of Jehovah. John
himself is the voice of one crying in the
wilderness, * Prepare ye the way of the Lord '
(cf . John iii. 28), Jesus is the Agent by Whom
that preparation is to be made so that all flesh
may see the salvation of God. To Jesus' dis-
ciples He is very much more than this. Andrew
can say, ' We have found the Messiah ' (John
i. 41), Philip, 4 We have found him, of whom
Moses in the law, and the prophets, did
write ' (John i. 45), and Nathanael, ' Rabbi,
thou art the Son of God ; thou art King of
Israel' (John i. 49). There is no need to
suppose that the evangelist is projecting
back into the earliest days of our Lord's
career ideas which were not grasped until
very much later ; the sayings contain nothing
which had not been announced by the voice
from heaven. According to Luke, in the
power of the Spirit bestowed in His baptism
He declared Himself the Anointed of God

OF OUR LORD 57

in the synagogue of Nazareth at the very
beginning of His ministry (iv. 18), which
explains how the man with the unclean
spirit in the synagogue of Capernaum soon
afterwards could acclaim Him, * Jesus of
Nazareth,' as ' the Holy One of God '
(Luke iv. 34 ; Mark i. 24), an incident which,
as recorded by Mark, is quite inexplicable,
and so affords further evidence of the
superiority of the narrative of Luke. John
the Baptist, however, never seems to have
advanced beyond the Isaianic interpretation
of the saying of the voice from heaven until
in prison he heard the rumours which arose
about Jesus after the raising of the widow's
son at Nain, that * A great prophet is arisen
among us : and, God hath visited his people '
(Luke vii. 16). Varied as the Messianic ex-
pectation was, it is plain that up to this
point John had not regarded ' the Servant
of Jehovah,' spoken of by Isaiah, as the
Messiah, in this agreeing with both earlier
and later Jewish commentators, or even as
the prophet who was to come, whether the
prophet like unto Moses (Deut. xviii. 15)
or Elijah himself (Mai. iv. 5). According
to Jewish expectation, as recorded in the
Talmudic tractate 'Sotah' (ix. 15), when
Elijah came he would raise the dead, as he had

58 THE BAPTISM

done of old (1 Kings xvii. 22). When it was
known that the new Teacher had raised the
widow's son it was natural that He should be
identified with Elijah, the prophet who was
to come, and this was evidently the report
which had reached the Baptist. He had
not, however, so understood the voice from
heaven, important as he realised the work
of Jesus to be. It is not in doubt but in
eager expectation that he sends his two
disciples to the Lord : ' Art thou he that
cometh, or look we for another ? ' (Luke vii.
19-20). Although at first sight it might
seem that Jesus gave no direct reply, apart
from a public proclamation of Himself,
which was contrary to His purpose, He said
all that was possible. Like John's own
sayings the answer was couched in the
phraseology of Isaiah, but it clearly tended
to encourage him in his expectation with
regard to one who could raise the dead.
4 Go your way, and tell John what things
ye have seen and heard ; the blind receive
their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are
raised up, the poor have good tidings
preached to them. And blessed is he, who-
soever shall find none occasion of stumbling
in me ' (Luke vii. 22-23). The popular view,

OF OUR LORD 59

however, is raised to a higher level, and words
spoken by Isaiah of Jehovah (viii. 14-15)
Jesus applies to Himself. When the disciples
of John had departed Jesus bears witness
of him to the people, as John indeed had
borne witness of Jesus. ' This is he of whom
it is written, Behold, I send my messenger
before thy face, who shall prepare thy way
before thee ' (Luke vii. 27 ; cf. Mai. iii. 1).
To us these words are of special im-
portance as revealing indirectly the opinion
Jesus held of Himself. If John was the
4 messenger ' spoken of by the prophet,
Jesus must have been ' the messenger of
the covenant ' Whose way he was to prepare.
According to the rabbis ' the messenger of
the covenant' is Elijah, of whom Malachi
speaks but a few verses later, ' Behold, I
will send you Elijah the prophet ' (iv. 5).
The words which Matthew adds to the
story as given by Luke, though possibly
the evangelist misunderstood them (cf. Matt,
xvii. 13), must refer properly to Jesus and
not to John. ' And if ye are willing to
receive it, this is Elijah, which is to come '
(xi. 14). Yet the words of Malachi suggest
much more than this. In the previous
chapter, speaking in the name of Jehovah,
he had said that the priest was 'the

60 THE BAPTISM

messenger of the Lord of hosts,' and tliat
His covenant was with Levi (ii. 4, 7, 8).
The coming of ' the messenger of the cove-
nant ' must tell then of the coming of a
faithful priest who shall restore the cove-
nant which has been corrupted, and this
priest he calls ' the Lord,' the Lord whom
they were seeking (iii. 1). The reference
apparently is to Psalm ex., and the expecta-
tion of the Messiah of which it tells, ' The
Lord saith unto my Lord, Sit thou at my
right hand, until I make thine enemies thy
footstool . . . Thou art a priest for ever
after the order of Melchizedek ' (1, 4).
Jesus Himself interpreted the psalm of the
Messiah (Luke xx. 41-44), and He cannot
have failed to appreciate the fulness of its
meaning. Testifying of John the Baptist
He thus bears witness to Himself, that He
is Elijah the prophet who was to come, the
Lord who will sit at God's right hand, and
the priest after the order of Melchizedek
who will restore the covenant. The feast
of the eucharist gains a fuller significance.
It is the feast upon the sacrifice of the New
Covenant (Luke xxii. 20 ; Mark xiv. 24),
by which the atonement is made and the
veil of the temple rent in the midst (Luke
xxiii. 45), Elijah himself, according to the

OF OUR LORD 61

' Targum Pseudo Jonathan ' on Exod. xl. 10,
being the high priest of Messianic days.
At every celebration of the passover accord-
ing to Jewish tradition a place was reserved
for Elijah, and in the eucharist we have the
paschal feast of the kingdom of God (Luke
xxii. 15-16, 18), the Messianic banquet of
which the prophets had told. Jesus in the
institution of the eucharist shows Himself
in His threefold office of prophet, priest,
and king.

Not long after his deputation to Jesus
John was beheaded, and Herod, hearing of
the fame of Jesus, ' was much perplexed,
because it was said by some, that John was
risen from the dead ; and by some, that
Elijah had appeared ; and by others, that
one of the old prophets was risen again'
(Luke ix. 7-8). We notice in particular
the double expectation, that Elijah should
come (Mai. iv. 5), and that the prophet like
unto Moses should be raised up (Deut. xviii.
15), the phraseology used leaving no doubt
about the identity of the prophet apart
from other considerations. The people were
full of this expectation. At one time they
thought they saw Elijah, or 'the prophet,'
in John the Baptist (John i. 21, 25), at
another in Jesus, John himself sharing their

62 THE BAPTISM

hope (Luke vii. 19). Jesus enquires about
it of His disciples, ' Who do the multitudes
say that I am ? And they answering said,
John the Baptist ; but others say, Elijah ;
and others, that one of the old prophets is
risen again ' (Luke ix. 18-19). To the
disciples, however, He was more. Men had
' reasoned in their hearts concerning John,
whether haply he were the Christ ' (Luke iii.
15 ; cf. John i. 20, 25). After communing
with Him Andrew saw the fulfilment of their
expectation in Jesus, and confided his belief
to his brother Simon, ' We have found the
Christ ' (John i. 41). At length in the ful-
ness of experience Peter makes that tenta-
tive expression of faith in the deepest sense
his own. ' He said unto them, But who
say ye that I am ? And Peter answering
said, The Christ of God' (Luke ix. 20).
The truth which had been revealed to
Jesus at His baptism, at which so many times
He had hinted to His disciples and the
multitudes, yet with no explicit statement
such as would forestall the discernment of
faith, is now openly confessed, 'But he
charged them, and commanded them to tell
this to no man ' (Luke ix. 21). And the
reason is that it is but a one-sided statement
of the truth, for the Son of God, Who is the

OF OUR LORD 63

Son of Man and the Christ, is also the Child
or Servant of Jehovah Who must suffer.
4 The Son of man must suffer many things,
and be rejected of the elders and chief priests
and scribes, and be killed, and the third day
be raised up ' (Luke ix. 21-22).

CHAPTER VI

THE TKANSFIGURATION AND THE
ASCENSION OF OUR LORD

Now at length we are in a position to
examine the second great vision of our
Lord's career. ' He took with him Peter
and John and James, and went up into the
mountain to pray. And as he was praying,
the fashion of his countenance was altered,
and his raiment became white and dazzling.
. . . Now Peter and they that were with
him were weighed down with sleep, but
remaining fully awake, they saw his glory,
. . . And . . . there came a cloud, and over-
shadowed them' (Luke ix. 28-29, 32, 34).
The last words are clearly based on the
description of the tabernacle. ' The cloud
overshadowed it, and the glory of the Lord
filled the tabernacle ' (Exod. xl. 35). We are
reminded of the words of the fourth gospel,
' The Word . . . tabernacled among us, and
we beheld his glory, glory as of the only

THE TRANSFIGURATION 65

begotten from the Fjather' (John i. 14).
The evangelist is describing what they saw
with the eyes of the soul, not of the body,
like Balaam, in an ecstasy, which in this
case, as so often in the lives of ecstatics,
came upon them in prayer. A type of
vision described by St. Teresa has much in
common. She calls it a ' glorious image,'
and says ' its splendour, like that of the
sun, dazzles the interior sight,' ' His garment
seems like the finest linen,' ' He clearly
makes Himself known to be the Lord of
heaven and earth.' 1 Both Mark and
Matthew omit much which is of value for a
proper understanding of the vision ; but
Matthew says ' his face did shine as the
sun,' a simile which appears also in the
visions of St. John the Divine (Rev. i. 16 ;
x. 1), and is used by St. Teresa. Matthew
also adds that ' they fell on their face '
(xvii. 6), a common detail in ecstatic visions.
At the sepulchre the women ' bowed down
their faces to the earth ' (Luke xxiv. 5), and
at his conversion Paul ' fell upon the earth '
(Acts ix. 4). We see the same thing in the
visions of Ezekiel (i. 28, in. 23, ix. 8, xliii. 3,
xliv. 4), Daniel (viii. 17), and St. John the
Divine (Rev. xix. 10, xxii. 8).

1 The Sixth Mansions, chap. ix. p. 186.

66 THE TRANSFIGURATION AND

Luke says also, ' And behold, there talked
with him two men, which were Moses and
Elijah ; who appeared in glory, and spake
of his decease which he was about to accom-
plish at Jerusalem ' (ix. 30-31). In the vision
they are recognised without difficulty. St.
Teresa says the same thing. ' If she should
see any of the saints, she knows them as
well as if she had conversed with them for
a length of time.' 1 There was an expecta-
tion among the Jews that Moses and Elijah
would appear together. The prophecy of
Malachi might be taken to suggest it (iv.
4-5), particularly when taken in conjunction
with the prophecy of Moses himself (Deut.
xviii. 15, 18), and it is recorded in the
Midrash on Deuteronomy, where we read
that according to Jochanan ben Zakkai
God said to Moses, ' If I send the prophet
Elijah, ye must both come together.' 2 Moses
and Elijah, we are told, spake of our Lord's
decease which was to be accomplished or
fulfilled, so that they are to be regarded
as witnesses to the truth of the Old Testa-
ment scriptures, particularly, it would seem,
of Isaiah liii., that the Son of God must

1 The Sixth Mansions, chap. v. p. 159.

2 Debar. R., x. i ; Volz, Judische Eschatologie, p. 193 ;
Charles, Revelation, i. 281.

ASCENSION OF OUR LORD 67

suffer, an idea the disciples were not ready
to accept from Jesus, Peter indeed, according
to Mark (viii. 32), rebuking our Lord when
first He taught them the necessity of it.
The Old Testament was summed up in ' the
law and the prophets,' as we read so often
(Luke xvi. 16, xxiv. 44 ; Acts xiii. 15, xxiv.
14 ; Matt. vii. 12, xxii. 40), and of the law
and the prophets Moses and Elijah were the
representatives, the scriptures of the Old
Testament, as it were, personified. They
had ' testified beforehand the sufferings of
Christ ' (1 Peter i. 11), and now in the vision
they appear as present witnesses to confirm
the truth of Jesus' own word. It marks an
important stage in the realisation of what
became so important an element in the
Christian tradition, ' that Christ died for our
sins according to the scriptures ' (1 Cor.
xv. 3). The secondary character of the narra-
tive of Mark is shown by the fact that he
too, as well as Matthew, makes no mention
of this the chief purpose of the vision. An
interesting feature of the account is to be
found in the suggestion of Peter, ' And it
came to pass, as they were parting from
him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is
good for us to be here : and let us make
three tabernacles ; one for thee, and one

68 THE TRANSFIGURATION AND

for Moses, and one for Elijah : not knowing
what he said ' (Luke ix. 33). We have here
evidence that though a body of men may
see much the same vision yet their attitude
towards it varies according to differences of
temperament or spiritual capacity, so that
the message it conveys is not necessarily
the same for all. When our Lord prophesied
His death Peter rebuked Him, but when
Moses and Elijah appeared in glory saying
the same thing he wished to make the vision
permanent, and to build three tabernacles,
so that, as in the tabernacle of old with
Jehovah, they might commune with His
servants and listen to their words (Exod.
xxv. 22). We see thus the special meaning
of the message from heaven. ' And a voice
came out of the cloud, saying, This is my
Son, my chosen : hear ye him ' (Luke ix. 35).
As at the baptism, but even more clearly
according to Luke, who adopts the rendering
' the chosen ' instead of ' the beloved,' the
earlier words have reference to the saying
of Isaiah, ' Behold, my servant . . . my
chosen ' (xlii. 1) ; and again we see the
double interpretation is intended, that Jesus
is the Son of God, the Servant of God Who
must suffer as well as the Son of Man Who
will reign ; but the last words give a new

ASCENSION OF OUR LORD 69

turn to the meaning. ' Hear ye him ' is
undoubtedly an allusion to the prophecy of
Moses, ' The Lord thy God will raise up
unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee,
of thy brethren, like unto me ; him shall ye
hear ' (Deut. xviii. 15). Clearly Jesus is
the prophet who should be raised up, the
new Moses : Him they must hear. As the
Son of God He has full claim on their
obedience, such as is not due to Moses and
Elijah either as seen in the vision or as
representing the Old Testament scriptures.
The Voice from heaven is a rebuke of Peter
who would not accept his Master's word
about His death until confirmed by Moses
and Elijah ; it is also the justification of the
great claim of the sermon on the mount,
4 Ye have heard that it was said to them of
old time . . . but I say unto you ' (Matt. v.
21-22). Both Moses and Elijah bear witness
to Jesus in the vision of the transfiguration,
but though the fulfilment of both it is as
the new Moses that He is especially revealed
by the voice from heaven. In many ways
Mark seems to have failed to grasp the full
significance of the transfiguration, but in an
incident, not found in Luke, which he adds
on to his account we find emphasis on our
Lord's claim to be Elijah : ' And they asked

70 THE TRANSFIGURATION AND

him, saying, The scribes say that Elijah
must first come. And he said unto them,
Elijah indeed cometh first, and restoreth
all things : and how is it written of the Son
of man, that he should suffer many things
and be set at nought ? But I say unto
you, that Elijah is indeed come, and they
do unto him whatsoever they list, even as
it is written of him ' (ix. 11-13). It is plain
that it is the Son of man Who is Elijah, and
not John the Baptist, as is commonly
understood, for otherwise the words are
unintelligible. Mark indeed says nothing
whatever about the Baptist at this point,
and though Matthew adds ' Then under-
stood the disciples that he spake unto
them of John the Baptist ' (xvii. 13), if the
words are not due to a misunderstanding
of the evangelist, it was not long before
they understood them differently. In his
speech after the healing of the lame man
Peter makes it plain not only that Jesus is
the Christ, but also the new Elijah and the
new Moses. ' Repent ye therefore, . . . that
he may send the Christ who hath been
appointed for you, even Jesus : whom the
heaven must receive until the times of
restoration of all things, whereof God spake
by the mouth of his holy prophets which

ASCENSION OF OUR LORD 71

have been since the world began (Mai. iv.
5, 6 ; cl Mark ix. 12). Moses indeed said,
A prophet shall the Lord God raise up unto
you from among your brethren, like unto
me ; to him shall ye hearken in all things
whatsoever he shall speak unto you ' (Deut.
xviii. 15, 18) (Acts iii. 19-22). Mark's sequel
to the story of the transfiguration thus con-
firms our interpretation of the vision, but the
words which Matthew adds to it suggest what
is really a misunderstanding (cf. John i. 21).
Omitting for the present the vision at
the sepulchre we will consider that at the
ascension: 'And when he had said these
things, as they were looking, he was taken
up ; and a cloud received him out of their
sight. And while they were looking sted-
fastly into heaven as he went, behold, two
men stood by them in white apparel ; which
also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye
looking into heaven ? this Jesus, which was
received up from you into heaven, shall so
come in like manner as ye beheld him going
into heaven ' (Acts i. 9-11). At the end of
the gospel Luke gives a much shorter
account. According to what is perhaps
the more probable text, found in * Codex
Bezae ' and other manuscripts, we read, ' And
it came to pass, while he blessed them, he

72 THE TRANSFIGURATION AND

parted from them. And they returned to
Jerusalem with great joy : and were con-
tinually in the temple, blessing God ' (xxiv.
51-53). The cloud, the two men who stood
by them in white apparel, and likewise the
words ' he parted from them ' in the gospel
account remind us of the story of the trans-
figuration with the words ' they were parting
from him.' Another phrase, ' they were
looking stedfastly into heaven,' is repeated
in the story of Stephen's vision, 'he ...
looked up stedfastly into heaven ' (Acts vii.
55). The result of the vision was exactly
what we find in the experience of ecstatics :
' They returned . . . with great joy, and
were continually . . . blessing God ' (Luke
xxiv. 52-53). St. Teresa describes at length
this ' great joy in the interior of the soul.'
c It is very painful to her being possessed
with such a transport of joy to be silent . . .
nor can she speak of anything else, except
what proceeds from this her joy, the praises
of God.' 1

The phraseology of Luke's account in
Acts is clearly based on that of the story
of the assumption of Elijah : ' When the
Lord would take up Elijah . . . into heaven,
... as they still went on, and talked } . . .
1 The Sixth Mansions, chap. vi. pp. 167-9.

ASCENSION OF OUR LORD 73

behold, there appeared a chariot of fire,
and horses of fire, which parted them both
asunder; and Elijah went up . . .into
heaven. And Elisha saw it ... And he
saw him no more' (2 Kings ii. 1, 11-12).
The 'parting' is mentioned in the gospel
account, but according to ' Codex Bezae ' and
other authorities nothing is said about an
ascension. Of the covering cloud we read
also in accounts of the death of Moses. In
an old apocryphal writing, probably to be
identified with the 'Assumption -of Moses,'
according to an ancient Catena on the
Pentateuch we are told that ' at what time
Moses died a bright cloud encircled the
place of the sepulchre, and so blinded the
eyes of those who stood around that no one
saw either the lawgiver die or the place
where his corpse was buried.' 1 Josephus
gives a similar account : ' And as he was
going to embrace Eleazar and Joshua, and
was still discoursing with them, a cloud
stood over him on the sudden, and he dis-
appeared in a certain valley, although he
wrote in the holy books that he died, which
was done out of fear, lest they should venture
to say that, because of his extraordinary

1 Fabricius, Cod. Pseud. V.T., vol. ii. pp. 121-2. See
Encyclopaedia Biblica, i. col. 235.

74 THE TRANSFIGURATION

virtue, he went to God.' l In describing
our Lord's ascension Luke evidently had in
mind the assumption of Elijah and the
passing of Moses, and sees in it the fulfilment
of what was prefigured in them, so that
there is little room for doubt whom 'the two
men in white apparel ' are intended to
represent. Again Moses and Elijah are His
witnesses, and their witness is that of the
Old Testament scriptures, the law and the
prophets, which in Him are fulfilled.

1 Antiquities of the Jews, bk. iv. chap. viii. 48, p. 103
(Whiston's translation).

CHAPTER VII

THE VISION AT THE SEPULCHRE

Now at last we may return to a consideration
of the women at the sepulchre when they
found not the body of Jesus. Luke con-
tinues, ' And it came to pass, while they
were perplexed thereabout, behold, two men
stood by them in dazzling apparel : and as
they were affrighted, and bowed down their
faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why
seek ye the living among the dead ? ' (xxiv.
4-5). Cleopas said that they saw a vision
(Luke xxiv. 23), and the two men standing
by them, the dazzling apparel, the fear,
and the bowing of their faces to the earth
are characteristic of visions. The question
is reminiscent of injunctions of both the law
and the prophets, ' Why seek ye about the
living from the dead ? ' (Is. viii. 19) ; ' Seek
them not out ' (Lev. xix. 31). The words
c behold, two men stood by them in dazzling
apparel,' save for the adjective ; dazzling '

76 THE VISION

instead of 'white,' are identical with what
we noticed in the account of the ascension,
and similar to those used in the description
of the transfiguration. There can be little
doubt but that again they are intended to
represent Moses and Elijah, the scriptures of
the Old Testament personified, as witnesses
to the fact that He has risen and is alive.
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus had taught
them this. 'All the things that are written
by the prophets shall be accomplished unto
the Son of man. For . . . the third day
he shall rise again,' but ' they understood
none of these things ; and this saying was
hid from them, and they perceived not the
things that were said ' (Luke xviii. 31, 33, 34).
The empty tomb conveyed no message to
Peter and John, 4 For as yet they knew not
the scripture, that he must rise again from
the dead ' (John xx. 9), and to them no vision
was vouchsafed. In ecstasy the women
grasped the truth of that fact which is the
most important element in the Christian
tradition, and without which the Christian
faith is vain, that, as St. Paul says, Christ
' hath been raised on the third day according
to the scriptures ' (1 Cor. xv. 2-4, 14). St.
Teresa's description of a vision of a similar
type helps us to grasp the kind of phe-

AT THE SEPULCHRE 77

nomenon which occurred : ' When the soul
is far from imagining that she is to see any-
thing, and has not the least thought thereof,
all at once the whole object is represented
to her together; and this disturbs all the
powers and senses with great terror, in order
to place them afterwards in that blessed
peace . . . and the soul is so fully instructed
in sublime truths, that she stands in need
of no other master.' 1 The lesson of the
vision is that which Jesus had tried to teach
them while yet present with them, as the
angel reminded the women according to
Luke, and that which He was so desirous of
teaching after His resurrection, both to the
disciples on the way to Emmaus and to the
eleven and the rest on the first Easter
evening. ' foolish men, and slow of heart
to believe in all that the prophets have
spoken ! Behoved it not the Christ to suffer
these things, and to enter into his glory ?
And beginning from Moses and from all the
prophets, he interpreted to them in all the
scriptures the things concerning himself
(Luke xxiv. 25-27). c These are my words
which I spake unto you, while I was yet
with you, how that all things must needs
be fulfilled, which are written in the law

1 The Sitvth Mansions, chap. ix. p. 188.

78 THE VISION

of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms,
concerning me. Then opened he their mind,
that they might understand the scriptures ;
and he said unto them, Thus it is written,
that the Christ should suffer, and rise again
from the dead the third day ' (Luke xxiv.
44-46). Which exactly the scriptures were
which Jesus explained we may perhaps see
in Peter's words on the day of Pentecost
and other speeches in the Acts ; the fact
that Paul's speech at Antioch has much in
common with those of Peter both in substance
and in references to the Old Testament,
particularly to Isaiah liii. for the sufferings
of the Christ, and to Psalm xvi. for His
resurrection, is evidence that there was a
well-recognised tradition on such matters,
to which indeed Paul could appeal in writing
to the Corinthians (1 Cor. xv. 1-4), which
explained that Christ both died for our sins
and rose again ' according to the scriptures,'
and doubtless specified which they were.

In three separate visions then we have
seen that Moses and Elijah, the representa-
tives of the Old Testament scriptures, have
appeared as witnesses of Jesus and to the
necessity of His passion, resurrection, and
ascension. That Moses and Elijah are the
two witnesses of Jesus is the basis of the
prophecy of the two witnesses in the Apoca-

AT THE SEPULCHRE 79

lypse, and in its application His death,
resurrection, and ascension are re-enacted in
His witnesses, just as they were prefigured
in Moses and Elijah, the representatives of
the Old Testament scriptures which like-
wise bear witness of Him. ' And I will give
unto my two witnesses, and they shall
prophesy ... And if any man desireth to
hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth,
and devoureth their enemies : and if any
man shall desire to hurt them, in this manner
must he be killed. These have the power to
shut the heaven, that it rain not during the
days of their prophecy (cf. Elijah, 2 Kings i.
10 et seq. ; 1 Kings xvii. 1 et seq.) : and they
have power over the waters to turn them
into blood, and to smite the earth with
every plague, as often as they shall desire
(cf. Moses, Exod. vii. 17 et seq.). And when
they shall have finished their testimony, the
beast . . . shall . . . overcome them and
kill them. . . . And after the three days
and a half the breath of life from God
entered into them, and they stood upon
their feet ; . . . And they heard a great
voice from heaven saying unto them, Come
up hither. And they went up into heaven
in the cloud ; and their enemies beheld
them ' (Rev. xi. 3, 5-7, 11-12).

Unlike that of Luke, the narrative of

80 THE VISION

Mark does not make the nature of the
vision of the women at the sepulchre at all
clear, and if we had his account alone we
should gather that the appearance was
objective, not subjective. He does indeed
use the word ecstasy in his description of
its effects, but in such a way that it has
generally, and not unnaturally, been sup-
posed that his meaning is merely that the
women were in a panic. ' And entering into
the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on
the right side, arrayed in a white robe ;
and they were amazed ' (xvi. 5). As in Luke
the phraseology appears to have been sug-
gested by that of the visions of Daniel.
4 Behold, there stood before me as the
appearance of a man . . . and when he
came, I was amazed' (viii. 15, 17); 'And
behold a man clothed in linen ' (x. 5). The
word used by Mark for ' amazed ' is that
found in the Septuagint. Mark's description,
however, is that of an apparition rather
than of a vision, comparable with the
appearance of the angel to the wife of
Manoah (Judges xiii. 3), which Josephus calls
' an apparition,' continuing c it was an angel
of God, and resembled a young man, beauti-
ful and tall.' 1 We may compare it also

1 Antiquities, bk. v. chap. viii. 2, p. 119.

AT THE SEPULCHRE 81

with the ' great apparition ' which appeared
to Heliodoms. ' Two other also appeared
unto him, young men, . . . splendid in their
apparel. . . . But as the high priest was
making the propitiation, the same young men
appeared again to Heliodorus, arrayed in the
same garments ' (2 Mace. iii. 24, 26, 33). To
Matthew likewise the vision is objective, and
the angel is not an angel seen in a vision, but
the angel who rolled away the stone. ' His
appearance was as lightning, and his raiment
white as snow ; and for fear of him the
watchers did quake, and became as dead
men ' (xxviii. 3, 4). Like Luke and Mark
he utilises the phraseology of Daniel, ' Be-
hold a man clothed in linen, ... his face
as the appearance of lightning, . . . the men
that were with me saw not the vision ; but
a great quaking fell upon them . . . and
there remained no strength in me ' (x. 5-8).
4 His raiment was white as snow ' (vii. 9).
In oral transmission the assimilation of the
phraseology of one vision to that of another
is quite natural. We notice that both Mark
and Matthew mention only one angel, and from
both gospels the idea of Moses and Elijah as
witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus, repre-
senting the witness of the scriptures, has
vanished.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MESSAGE OF THE ANGELS

WHAT exactly was the message of the
angels (or angel) at the sepulchre to the
women ? According to the most probable
text of Luke the words were ' Why seek ye
the living among the dead ? Remember
how he spake unto you when he was yet in
Galilee, saying that the Son of man must
be delivered up into the hands of sinful
men, and be crucified, and the third day
rise again ' (xxiv. 5-7). According to Mark
they were ' Be not amazed : ye seek Jesus,
the Nazarene, which hath been crucified :
he is risen ; he is not here : behold, the
place were they laid him ! But go, tell his
disciples and Peter, He goeth before you
into Galilee : there shall ye see him, as he
said unto you ' (xvi. 6-7). At first sight,
at any rate, the account in Luke seems
much more probable, for the primary object
of the appearance to the women was to

MESSAGE OP THE ANGELS 83

convey the news that Jesus was alive. To
talk prosaically at such a moment of arrange-
ments which had been made for a meeting
in Galilee would be both incongruous and
premature, and indeed quite pointless if,
as Matthew tells us, and probably Mark
in the original ending of the gospel,
practically identical words were spoken by
Jesus Himself in a much more likely con-
nexion only a short time later. According
to each gospel there is an appeal to a saying
of Jesus, ' Remember how he spake unto you
when he was yet in Galilee ' in Luke, and
' He goeth before you into Galilee : there
shall ye see him, as he said unto you ' in
Mark. It is curious that the saying to which,
according to Luke, the angels refer is not
given in full in the present text of his gospel
(ix. 43-44), and there is no mention of
Galilee, though in the corresponding passage
of Mark the reference is complete, so that
on this point the tradition of Mark is prefer-
able, being presupposed even in Luke. We
read : ' And they went forth from thence, and
passed through Galilee ; and he would not
that any man should know it. For he
taught his disciples, and said unto them,
The Son of man is delivered up into the
hands of men, and they shall kill him ; and

84 THE MESSAGE

when he is killed, after three days he shall
rise again ' (Mark ix. 30-31). According to
Mark the angel refers to words spoken by
our Lord in the upper room the night before
His passion, when the women were not
present but only the twelve apostles (Luke
xxii. 14 ; Mark xiv. 17), so that ; unto
you ' means not to the women as in Luke,
but to the twelve. We read : ' And Jesus
saith unto them, All ye shall be offended :
for it is written, I will smite the shepherd,
and the sheep shall be scattered abroad.
Howbeit, after I am raised up, I will go
before you into Galilee. But Peter said
unto him, Although all shall be offended,
yet will not I' (xiv. 27-29). We see the
reason for the special mention of Peter in
the angel's speech : it is part of the passage
quoted. Though doubtless implied, it is
not stated in so many words that they will
see Him in Galilee, but it is in Matthew's
account of the appearance of Jesus to the
women. ' Then saith Jesus unto them, Fear
not : go tell my brethren that they depart
into Galilee, a,nd there shall they see me '
(xxviii. 10). Even if we suppose Mark's
account of the message of the angel to be
generally and in substance correct, the exact
words given would seem to be a conflation

OF THE ANGELS 85

of what the angel actually said and the
words of Jesus spoken later. It seems more
probable, however, that Mark, or the oral
tradition which he wrote down, confused
the words of the angel with those of Jesus
to the women, modifying the latter in the
light of what He said the night before He
suffered, and interpreting the angel's appeal
to a former utterance of Jesus in that
sense. Not infrequently we find similar
confusion in Mark's narrative, presumably
as the result of oral transmission. What
according to Luke are details of our Lord's
trial before the Sanhedrin he gives, most
improbably, as part of the search for
witnesses in the courtyard of the high priest's
palace (Mark xiv. 57-64 ; cf . Luke xxii. 67-
71). Similarly details of our Lord's trial
before Herod he introduces into his account
of the trial before Pilate (Mark xv. 3-5 ; cf.
Luke xxiii. 9-10). A striking example of
the confusion of similar sayings appears in
each of the synoptic gospels, though in
different degrees. On one occasion, when
there had been a dispute among the apostles
which of them should be greatest, Luke says
4 He took a little child, and set him by his
side, and said unto them, Whosoever shall
receive this little child in my name, receiveth

86 THE MESSAGE

me : and whosoever shall receive me re-
ceiveth him that sent me : for he that is
least among you all, the same is great '
(ix. 47-48). We notice that the first and
last clauses have to do with an object lesson
in humility, but the second with the receiv-
ing of a little child. Mark's account is
practically the same, except that he omits
the third -part (ix. 36-37). On another
occasion, when the disciples rebuked those
who brought their babes to Jesus, Luke says
' But Jesus called them unto him, saying,
Suffer the little children to come Unto me,
and forbid them not : for of such is the
kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you,
Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom
of God as a little child, he shall in no wise
enter therein ' (xviii. 16-17). Mark's account
is almost verbally identical (x. 14-15).
Here we notice the first part has to do with
the receiving of little children, and the
second with humility as a necessity for
entrance into the kingdom of God, the
exact opposite of what we found in the former
incident. The suggestion surely is that the
second sections of the narratives have been
interchanged, a very easy mistake to make
with sayings verbally so very similar in
the course of oral transmission. When we

OF THE ANGELS 87

read Matthew's version of the two incidents
our supposition becomes a practical certainty.
We read : 4 And he called to him a little
child, and set him in the midst of them,
and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye
turn, and become as little children, ye shall
in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself
as this little child, the same is the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso
shall receive one such little child in my
name receiveth me ' (xviii. 2-5). We notice
that this account consists of part one of
Luke's first incident, part two of his second,
part three of his first, and part two of his
first. There can be little doubt but that the
tradition of Matthew is the most accurate
version of what took place, and that of Mark
the least, yet though the evangelist relies
on another and better tradition for his
second clause, the influence of Mark persists
in the addition of his fourth clause, which
in both Luke and Mark is placed in the
wrong incident as the second section. Conse-
quently in relating the second incident,
having already used what should be the
second clause, he gives only the first, ' But
Jesus said, Suffer the little children, and
forbid them not, to come unto me : for of

88 THE MESSAGE

such is the kingdom of heaven ' (xix. 14).
As in each of the synoptic gospels, and
particularly in Mark, we find confusion of
incidents and sayings, we need have little
hesitation in deciding that the same is true
in the case of Mark's account of the angel's
speech to the women at the sepulchre, and
that, as so often, Luke's is preferable. We
notice now the point of Luke's repeated
description of the women as those ' that
followed with him from Galilee,' and ' which
had come with him out of Galilee,' and see
how it leads up to the words of the angels,
' Remember how he spake unto you when
he was yet in Galilee.' Mark mentions
that the women were those ' who, when
he was in Galilee, followed him,' but the
words in no way lead up to ' He goeth before
you into Galilee,' so that in Mark's tradition
the reason for the first statement according
to Luke has vanished, and the connexion
is lost.

If the latter part of the angel's speech
is so inaccurately reported by Mark we may
not unreasonably enquire whether the earlier
part is more reliable. If, as we have con-
cluded, we are dealing with a vision seen in
ecstasy, the words ' he is not here : behold,
the place where they laid him ' are surely

OF THE ANGELS 89

impossible. Quite apart from the fact that
during an ecstasy as a rule the senses cease
to act, so that the women would be unable
to examine the tomb, the revelations vouch-
safed in the mystic state are of a super-
natural order, and do not convey information
which it would be quite easy to gain in
ordinary ways. In form the words are
evidently intended to refer us back to the
previous statement that the two Maries
' beheld where he was laid ' (xv. 47), and
to give us more definite information. In
substance they are merely the equivalent
of Luke's ' Why seek ye the living among
the dead ? ' interpreted in the light of the
fact that they ' found not the body ' of
Jesus. The latter part of the angel's speech
we have decided is a conflation of the message
imparted to the women in ecstasy and of
words spoken by our Lord on two separate
occasions, one before He suffered and the
other after His resurrection : it seems very
probable that the first part has a similar
composite origin, for besides reminiscences
of the speech as given by Luke it contains
echoes of phrases found in the third gospel
in the story of the journey to Emmaus.
' Jesus, the Nazarene ' is the description
used by Cleopas and his companion.

90 THE MESSAGE

* Which hath been crucified : he is risen '
in substance reproduces ' be crucified, and
the third day rise again ' of Luke's version
of the angels' words, but more exactly
' crucified him,' 4 is risen indeed ' of the
Emmaus story, the word for ' is risen ' being
exactly the same in this case but quite
different in the angels' speech. The fact
that Mark misunderstood the nature of the
vision vouchsafed to the women in ecstasy,
and described it as though it were an
apparition of an objective kind, is proof
that his narrative is of a secondary character,
the change being such as would naturally
arise in the course of oral transmission, and
makes it less difficult to believe that the
speech attributed by Mark to the angel is,
if our analysis is correct, a mosaic of words
spoken at different times by different people,
and so is not in any strict sense historical.

Matthew on the whole repeats Mark, but
on several points, as we have noticed, he
reverts to Luke. Jesus is not called ' the
Nazarene,' and Peter is not mentioned
separately. The words ' as he said ' are
rightly referred to the fact that Jesus had
foretold His resurrection, not to a statement
that they would see Him in Galilee, which
had yet to be made, ' Lo, I have told you '

OF THE ANGELS 91

being substituted for ' as he said unto you '
at this point.

Luke continues his narrative, ' And they
remembered his words, and returned (from
the tomb), and told all these things to the
eleven, and to all the rest. Now they were
Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the
mother of James : and the other women
with them told these things unto the apostles.
And these words appeared in their sight
as idle talk ; and they disbelieved them ' 1
(xxiv. 8-11). The language is rather in-
volved, particularly where the names are
introduced. What exactly did the writer
mean ? Fortunately we have another ac-
count of the message of the women in the
discourse of the two disciples on the way
to Emmaus. We read : ' Moreover certain
women of our company amazed us, having
been early at the tomb ; and when they
found not his body, they came, saying,
that they had also seen a vision of angels,
which said that he was alive. And certain
of them that were with us went to the tomb,
and found it even so as the women had

1 The account of the visit of Peter to the tomb which
follows in many manuscripts is absent from Codex Berne
and other Western authorities, and though early, it is
probably not an original element of the gospel, and
seems to be dependent on John.

92 THE MESSAGE

said : but him they saw not ' (xxiv. 22-24).
We notice at once what seems to be a contra-
diction in the two accounts. ' They dis-
believed them.' 'They found it even so as
the women had said.' The two disciples
make a distinction between the statement
that the women found not the body of Jesus,
and their claim to have seen a vision of
angels. One is mentioned as a fact fully
accepted by the speakers, and only in-
cidentally, in relating the doubtful story
of the vision of angels, are we told that the
first statement also was part of the informa-
tion received from the women. Afterwards
they explain why there could be no doubt
about the emptiness of the tomb the visit
of ' certain of them that were with us ' had
placed it beyond question. The words of
the disciples might also be interpreted as
implying that they proved the vision of
angels to be true likewise, but probably this
is regarded as being in another category
the truth about a vision of angels could not
be proved by a visit to a spot where it is
supposed to have taken place and so still
lacking confirmation. With regard to the
women's report about the empty tomb it is
clearly not true to say that at any time
' they disbelieved them,' though that this was

OF THE ANGELS 93

the case with regard to the vision of angels
is implied in the disciples' story. Luke's
words, however, are without qualification
and seem to apply to the whole of the
women's report 'They disbelieved them.'
There is no suggestion that almost im-
mediately a large part of their story was
proved quite accurate. Even though the
women's report had been that they had
seen a vision of angels as well as that they
had found the sepulchre empty, as the
latter statement had been confirmed, to say
that c they disbelieved them ' appears to be
a very unfair summary of the attitude of
the apostles and the rest towards them.
Women who had been proved correct on so
important a point as the emptiness of the
tomb, in itself just as unlikely as the vision
of angels, deserved to have any further
statement they might make, however extra-
ordinary, regarded as something better than
' idle talk,' and it is difficult to imagine that
it could have been otherwise. The two dis-
ciples distinguished so clearly the different
parts of the information derived from the
women that we seem to be justified in sup-
posing that compressed into the one statement
there may be more reports than one, perhaps
also of more than one group of women.

94 THE MESSAGE

In confirmation of this idea it will be
useful to consider Luke's manner of reporting
speeches on other occasions, and particularly
we may instance Paul's speech before
Agrippa, describing his conversion and call.
* And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou
persecutest. But arise, and stand upon
thy feet : for to this end have I appeared
unto thee, to appoint thee a minister and a
witness both of the things wherein thou
hast seen me, and of the things wherein I
will appear unto thee ; delivering thee from
the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom
I send thee, to open their eyes, that they
may turn from darkness to light, and from
the power of Satan unto God, that they may
receive remission of sins and an inheritance
among them that are sanctified by faith
in me. Wherefore, king Agrippa, I was
not disobedient unto the heavenly vision '
(Acts xxvi. 15-19). The substance of this
speech we notice is derived from what
Jesus said to him at his conversion, what
Ananias said to him at Damascus, and what
Jesus said to him in the vision in the temple
(Acts xxii. 8, 15, 21), as also indeed from a
prophecy of Isaiah (xlii. 6-7, 16). And yet
he continues ' Wherefore ... I was not
disobedient unto the heavenly vision,' as

OF THE ANGELS 95

though he were reporting only one saying,
and not giving with scriptural illustration a
summary of three. If we may suppose, as
is not unlikely in such a speech, a similar
compression in the statement of the two
disciples with regard to the report of the
women, all contradiction between Luke's
own narrative and what he gives as theirs,
entirely disappears, for we may suppose
that there were at least two reports, one
about the emptiness of the tomb, and the
other, perhaps by different women, delivering
the message of the angels. If now we go
back to the evangelist's own account we
see that the idea is confirmed. We read :
4 They . . . reported all these things to the
eleven,' ' the other women with them told
these things unto the apostles,' ' These words
appeared ... as idle talk.' We notice the
emphasis on ' these ' ' all these things,'
4 these things,' 4 these words.' The reference
can hardly be different on each occasion,
and it would seem to be primarily to the
report of the words of the angels bringing to
remembrance our Lord's own words, the
last thing mentioned, rather than to any
statement about the emptiness of the tomb,
though of necessity the latter would be
included or implied. If so, we can under-

96 MESSAGE OF THE ANGELS

stand better the awkward verse in the
middle of Luke's account. ' Now they were
Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary
the mother of James : and the other women
with them told these things unto the apostles.'
Clearly the evangelist would have us under-
stand that the three women named were
among those who visited the sepulchre, but
it is rather curious that he tells us nothing
else about them, and proceeds to say that
not they but the other women told ' these
things ' unto the apostles. It seems not
improbable that Luke is here curtailing his
source, or that he has other information than
he gives. In the statement that the other
women reported ' these things ' there is
perhaps a suggestion that there was also a
report of Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and the
other Mary which in some way differed, and
so possibly did not include the angels' words
to which primarily he is referring, but only
that the tomb was empty.

CHAPTER IX

ST. MARK'S STORY OF THE ECSTASY
AT THE TOMB

THE words of the two disciples on the way
to Emmaus conclude with the statement
with regard to those who visited the sepulchre
after the tidings of the women, ' but him
they saw not.' Taken in conjunction with
the words which immediately precede, 4 even
so as the women had said,' these words seem
to suggest that there was also a report that
certain of the women had actually seen
Jesus, and, if so, in the speech attributed to
Cleopas there would be a combination of
the substance of three reports, quite in
Luke's manner, as we have seen in his account
of Paul's speech before Agrippa, where also
three sayings appear as one. Certainly the
words are not directly suggested by the
statement of the angels that He was alive,
for it does not follow that because He
was alive they should expect to see Him

H

98 ST. MARK'S STORY OF THE

immediately and at the tomb. If there was
such a report, that some of the women had
seen Jesus, it could only have been made
by Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and the other
Mary. All this is, of course, merely hypo-
thesis, but it seems the most obvious way
of filling out Luke's account, which is
plainly incomplete, and it fits in in an extra-
ordinary manner with what we are told
elsewhere both in Mark and John.

Mark tells us that Mary Magdalene, and
Mary the mother of James, and Salome came
to the sepulchre in the early morning, no
mention being made of other women. After
giving his version of the message of the
angel to the women in the tomb he continues :
4 And they went out, and fled from the
tomb ; for trembling and an ecstasy held
them : and they said nothing to anyone ;
for they were afraid ' (xvi. 8) ; and there the
gospel ends abruptly. Mark's account, as
we have already noticed, seems quite to fail
to make the nature of the vision clear, and
he confuses the subjective with the objective,
so that we might imagine that he was
describing an exterior apparition. Fear,
trembling, and flight, however, are quite
the usual accompaniments of a vision seen
in ecstasy. In the descriptions of Daniel's

ECSTASY AT THE TOMB 99

visions we read : 4 And, behold, there stood
before me as the appearance of a man . . .
and when he came, I was affrighted, and
fell upon my face (viii. 15, 17). ' And I
Daniel alone saw the vision : for the men
that were with me saw not the vision ; but
a great trembling fell upon them, and they
fled to hide themselves ' (x. 7). Unless,
however, the vision is in itself of an alarming
character, such experiences belong only to
the earlier stages, where indeed Mark does
say that ' they were amazed ' : afterwards
they are succeeded, as St. Teresa says, by
an inexpressible peace and joy and a dis-
position to praise God. 1 The good news
that Jesus had risen and was alive ought
not to have left them in a state of fright
that they could say nothing to anyone. It
is all so contrary to what Luke says, and
yet it is difficult to suppose that the difference
is to be ascribed to the imagination of the
evangelist, or to a misunderstanding. The
probability is that Mary Magdalene and her
two companions, though, doubtless, like the
other women they saw the two angels and
were in an ecstasy, were conscious of no
message at all. As at the transfiguration
the effect upon Peter was somewhat different

1 The Sixth Mansions, chap. iii. pp. 140-1.

100 ST. MARK'S STORY OF THE

from that upon the other two apostles, and
the suggestion to build tabernacles was his
alone, so here too the ejuect of the vision
upon Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and the other
Mary would appear to have been quite
unlike that upon the other women. Indeed,
owing to difference in temperament and
predispositions, quite a different type of
ecstasy resulted. Again St. Teresa seems
to help us to understand it by her descrip-
tion of the condition of one, whom indeed
she likens to Mary Magdalene, who having
experienced the delight of union with her
Lord mourns and weeps continually in her
love and ardent desire, thinking only of the
torment of His absence. ' She seems to feel
herself to be in a strange solitude : all those
who live on earth are no company for her :
no, nor would . . . those in heaven be, if
her Beloved One were not there present ;
everything torments her, and she sees her-
self like one hanging in the air, neither able
to rest on anything belonging to earth, nor
able to ascend into heaven.' 4 It happens
then sometimes that such a soul thus burning
in herself, upon a very slight thought that
she may have . . . feels ... a blow, as if
it came from a fiery dart, though she under-
stands not whence, nor how.' 'The soul

ECSTASY AT THE TOMB 101

sees herself absent from God: and His
Majesty helps this at that time by so clear
a manifestation of Himself, as to increase
the pain.' ' In an instant it binds up the
faculties in such a manner, that they have
no liberty for anything whatever, except for
those things which tend to increase this grief.'
4 In this extremity she does not continue
long at most ... not above three or four
hours. . . . Sometimes it has not continued
for more than a quarter of an hour, and yet
the person has been as it were disjointed.'
1 The body is so disjointed that, for two or
three days after, it has no strength even to
write a few lines, for the pains are great.'
4 Then she fears indeed, . . . nor is it possible
for this pain to be removed, till our Lord
shall take it away. This is usually done
by a vision, whereby the true Comforter
both comforts and strengthens the soul.' 1
The description seems to fit the case of Mary
Magdalene almost exactly. She had ex-
perienced the closest communion with her
Lord as she followed Him, but her bliss
had been cruelly broken. We think of her
mourning by the cross, and afterwards by
the sepulchre. To her, and so probably to

1 The Sixth Mansions, chap. xi. pp. 200, 198, 199,
198, 201, 199, 202.

102 ST. MARK'S STORY OF THE

her companions likewise, the angelic vision
was exactly such a manifestation of the
supernatural as would increase her grief,
but would convey no message at all. The
vision 'binds up the faculties,' says St.
Teresa. ' Trembling and an ecstasy held
them,' says St. Mark. ' They have no
liberty for anything whatever,' ; Then she
fears indeed,' says St. Teresa. ' They said
nothing to anyone, for they were afraid,'
says St. Mark. The effect of the vision was
very different from what it was upon the
other women from Galilee, as Luke describes
it : in one case it led to an ecstasy of joy
and in the other to an ecstasy of sorrow.
Upon these other women the effect was
much more transitory. To terror succeeded
peace, and they were able to grasp the
angels' message ; they remembered our Lord's
words, and returning told all things to the
apostles and the rest. Mark's account thus
fits in exactly with Luke's, and gives meaning
to a difficult verse. * Now they were Mary
Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the
mother of James : and the other women
with them told these things unto the
apostles ' (Luke xxiv. 10).

Matthew, as so often, combines the nar-
ratives of Mark and Luke, though properly,

ECSTASY AT THE TOMB 103

as we have seen reason to suppose, they
refer to the widely differing experiences of
different groups of women, and making of
the two one story refers it to Mary Mag-
dalene and the other Mary. We read :
4 And they departed quickly from the tomb
with fear and great joy, and ran to bring his
disciples word ' (xxviii. 8). He then con-
tinues with an incident which there is every
reason to believe historical. ' And behold,
Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they
came and took hold of his feet, and
worshipped him. Then saith Jesus unto
them, Fear not : go tell my brethren that
they depart into Galilee, and there shall they
see me ' (xxviii. 9-10). Matthew's narrative,
as we have noticed so frequently, is to a
large extent a fusion of the accounts of
Mark and Luke, and as this incident is not
in Luke, though there is a suggestion of it,
and it differs entirely from the type of story
peculiar to the first gospel, it seems not
improbable that it was derived from the
lost ending of Mark. This indeed agrees
with a conclusion we have already reached,
that it is the speech of the angels as given
in Luke which is authentic, not the speech
which takes its place in Mark, in which not
only are our Lord's words and those of the

104 THE ECSTASY AT THE TOMB

angels confused, but words are attributed
to him in the past which had yet to be
spoken in the future. If so, the appear-
ance to the women must be part of the
original tradition. St. Teresa, we remember,
declared that a vision was usually necessary
to remove the effects of an ecstasy of grief.
The appearance of Jesus to them was thus
exactly at the right psychological moment.

CHAPTER X

ST. JOHN'S STORY OF MARY AT THE
TOMB

OUR conclusions agree exactly with what we
are told in the fourth gospel. c Now on the
first day of the week cometh Mary Magda-
lene early, while it was yet dark, unto the
tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from
the tomb ' (xx. 1). The note of time, we
notice, agrees with what we read in Luke
and Matthew, but not in Mark. ' She
runneth therefore, and cometh to Simon
Peter, and to the other disciple, whom
Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They
have taken away the Lord out of the tomb,
and we know not where they have laid
him ' (xx. 2). Her words to the apostles,
' we know not,' suggest that she had
been accompanied by other women to the
sepulchre, as the other evangelists state,
and probably some of them returned with
her. There is no reason to suppose that

106 ST. JOHN'S STORY OF

Mary hurried from the tomb as soon as she
saw the stone taken away. The more natural
thing would be that she would look more
closely into the matter. Her words to the
apostles seem rather to suggest that, as
Luke says, the women entered into the
sepulchre, and found it empty, ' They have
taken away the Lord out of the tomb.' The
next section is an elaboration of the state-
ment of the two disciples on the way to
Emmaus, ' And certain of them that were
with us went to the tomb, and found it
even so as the women had said ' (Luke
xxiv. 24). We read : ' Peter therefore went
forth, and the other disciple, and they went
toward the tomb. And they ran both to-
gether : and the other disciple outran Peter,
and came first to the tomb ; and stooping
and looking in, he seeth the linen cloths
lying ; yet entered he not in. Simon Peter
therefore also cometh, following him, and
entered into the tomb ; and he beholdeth
the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, that
was upon his head, not lying with the linen
cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself.
Then entered in therefore the other disciple
also, which came first to the tomb, and he
saw, and believed. For as yet they knew
not the scripture, that he must rise again

MARY AT THE TOMB 107

from the dead. So the disciples went away
again unto their own home ' (xx. 3-10). In
the fact that John had to stoop to look into
the sepulchre we find confirmation of our
conclusion that the stone could not have
been so very great, and so not beyond the
powers of three women to move, agreeing
with what must have been their own opinion
when they set out for the sepulchre, according
to the natural interpretation of Luke apart
from the other gospels. The tomb was
apparently of only one chamber, the place
for the body being clearly seen from the
entrance, either of the bench or loculus
type, not a tomb with kokim, which would
have allowed nothing but the lower part of
the body to be visible, and would have made
it quite impossible for Peter even after
entering the tomb to have seen 4 the linen
cloths lying, and the napkin, that was upon
his head, not lying with the linen cloths,
but rolled up in a place by itself (xx. 7).
John evidently wishes us to note the contrast
between the resurrection of Jesus, and what
he says about the raising of Lazarus. ; He
that was dead came forth, bound hand and
foot with grave-clothes ; and his face was
bound about with a napkin ' (xi. 44). The
statement that John ' saw and believed ' can

108 ST. JOHN'S STORY OF

mean no more than what the two disciples
on the way to Emmaus said, that those who
went to the sepulchre 'found it even so as
the women had said,' not that they believed
that He was risen from the dead, for the
verse which follows seems distinctly to tell us
it was not so, 4 As yet they knew not the
scripture, that he must rise again from the
dead ' (xx. 9). Mary Magdalene, and prob-
ably other women also, followed the apostles
back again to the tomb, remaining there even
when the apostles went away again home.
John describes the vision of angels from the
point of view of Mary Magdalene. 'But
Mary was standing without at the tomb
weeping : so, as she wept, she stooped and
looked into the tomb; and she beholdeth
two angels in white sitting, one at the
head, and one at the feet, where the body
of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her,
Woman, why weepest thou ? She saith unto
them, Because they have taken away my
Lord, and I know not where they have
laid him ' (xx. 11-13). By itself the descrip-
tion would not perhaps suggest an ecstatic
vision, but there is nothing, as there is in
Mark's account, which is incompatible with
such a view. According to Luke the women
were in perplexity, according to John Mary

MARY AT THE TOMB 109

lingered at the tomb weeping. We are
reminded of St. Teresa's description of the
woman who ' mourns and weeps continually '
in yearning for her Lord. As she weeps
Mary is in an ecstasy, and her ordinary
experience seems to be continued in the
vision. ' So, as she wept, she stooped and
looked into the tomb ; and she beholdeth
two angels in white sitting, one at the head,
and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus
had lain' (xx. 11-12). As is usual in such
experiences the vision no doubt reproduces
the reality, so that the sepulchre must have
been one with a bench for bodies along one
or more sides, not with a loculus cut in the
wall. The vision of the angels in John's
account is often described as purposeless,
and, if what John describes were all, it might
be difficult to see a motive, but, as so often,
his intention seems to have been to draw
attention to matters which the other evan-
gelists have omitted. The conversation be-
tween Mary and the angels which he records
would form an excellent introduction to the
words given by Luke, ' Woman, why weepest
thou ? ' 4 Because they have taken away
my Lord, and I know not where they have
laid him.' ' Why seek ye the living among
the dead ? ' Yet if our conclusion is correct

110 ST. JOHN'S STORY OF

Mary Magdalene quite failed to grasp the
latter part of the conversation, and, as at the
transfiguration, in different people the vision
roused different emotions. One thought
only was dominant in the mind of Mary
Magdalene, ' They have taken away my
Lord, and I know not where they have
laid him,' and the vision of the angels
availed nothing to assuage her grief and
sense of loss. Mark, as we have seen, goes
further and says of both Mary and her
companions, ' Trembling and an ecstasy
held them, and they said nothing to any one,'
but John, who has avoided any direct
mention of the ecstasy, says nothing of this.
Lapse of time is hardly measurable in the
mystic state, and however long it lasts it
may seem little more than momentary. To
Mary it was when she had finished speaking
with the angel, really, we may suppose, when
she came to herself after the ecstasy, that
she turned and saw Jesus. ' When she had
thus said, she turned herself back, and
beholdeth Jesus standing, and knew not
that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her,
Woman, why weepest thou ? whom seekest
thou ? She, supposing him to be the
gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou hast
borne him hence, tell me where thou hast

MARY AT THE TOMB 111

laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus
saith unto her, Mary. She turnetb. herself,
and saith unto him in Hebrew, Rabboni ;
which is to say, Master ' (xx. 14-16),
Matthew has combined in one narrative the
return of the women who reported the angel's
words to the apostles and that of Mary
Magdalene and her two companions, and
he says : ' And behold, Jesus met them,
saying, All hail.' It is the sound of her
name, 4 Mary,' which rouses her to her true
self, and recognising Jesus the bonds of the
ecstasy are broken. ' And they came and
took hold of his feet, and worshipped him,'
says Matthew, and it explains the next
words of John, ' Jesus saith to her, Touch
me not ; for I am not yet ascended unto
the Father ' (xx. 17). Like Matthew, John
also gives a message to the brethren. ' But
go unto my brethren, and say to them, I
ascend unto my Father and your Father,
and my God and your God ' (xx. 17). The
message seems supplementary to that of
Matthew, not contradictory. Usually in
literary problems it is unsafe to combine
divergent narratives, but this is not always
true in dealing with the fourth gospel, and
in the present instance a combination of
the two traditions makes better sense than

112 MARY AT THE TOMB

either alone. ' Go tell my brethren that
they depart into Galilee, and there shall they
see me.' ' I ascend unto my Father and
your Father, and my God and your God.'
The appearance in Galilee, which Jesus had
foretold the night before He suffered, we see
to be intended as the great manifestation
of Jesus in His glory before His ascension
and the withdrawal of His visible presence.
John then continues, 'Mary Magdalene
cometh and telleth the disciples, I have seen
the Lord ; and how that he had said these
things unto her ' (xx. 18). It is of this
report, ' I have seen the Lord,' that we seem
to find an echo in the words of the disciples
on the way to Emmaus, ' But him they saw
not,' a conclusion which agrees exactly with
what we judged probable on other grounds.

CHAPTER XI

THE APPEARANCE OF OUE LORD IN
GALILEE

THERE is no need for a detailed discussion
of the journey to Emmaus or of the appear-
ance in the upper room on the evening of
the first Easter Day, recorded by both
Luke and John, or of the appearance to
Thomas also a week later, recorded only
by John. In the appendix to the fourth
gospel there is an appearance in Galilee,
intended presumably as a preliminary to
His great manifestation there. ' After these
things Jesus manifested himself again to the
disciples at the sea of Tiberias ; . . . This is
now the third time that Jesus was manifested
to the disciples, after that he was risen
from the dead ' (xxi. 1, 14). At the moment
they were not expecting to see Jesus, but
true to His promise He had gone before
them into Galilee (Mark xiv. 28). In
Matthew alone now do we find an account

114 THE APPEARANCE OF

of that appearance in Galilee, which to
Jesus Himself was evidently of such great
importance, which He foretold the night
before His crucifixion, and of which He
spoke to Mary Magdalene and the other
women on the first Easter morning, though
it must presumably have been recorded in
the ending of Mark now lost. Probably,
however, it is of this that St. Paul speaks
when writing to the Corinthians, ' Then he
appeared to above five hundred brethren
at once' (1 Cor. xv. 6). Such a gathering
could hardly have taken place conveniently or
safely elsewhere than in Galilee at Jerusalem
indeed even at a later period we read of only
a hundred and twenty (Acts i. 15) and ex-
cept by prearrangement for some important
object, which our Lord's promise that He
would see them in Galilee provides, such an
assembly of disciples would have no purpose
at all. Matthew says : ' But the eleven dis-
ciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain
where Jesus had appointed them. And
when they saw him, they worshipped him :
but some doubted. And Jesus came to
them and spake unto them, saying, All
authority hath been given unto me in
heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and
make disciples of all the nations, baptizing

OUR LORD IN GALILEE 115

them into the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to
observe all things whatsoever I commanded
you : and lo, I am with you alway, even
unto the end of the world' (xxviii. 16-20).
For a Jew this must have been the climax
of the gospel story, for Jesus is manifest
as the Christ, the Son of God and Son of
Man. The announcement at His baptism,
' Thou art my Son, the beloved, in thee I
am well pleased,' is declared to have re-
ceived fulfilment, c All authority hath been
given unto me in heaven and on earth.'
We are reminded of the temptation of the
devil at the beginning of His ministry when
first He was proclaimed the Son of God.
Showing Him all the kingdoms of the world
in a moment of time he said, ' To thee will
I give all this authority, and the glory of
them : for it hath been delivered unto me ;
and to whomsoever I will I give it ' (Luke
iv. 5-6). Our Lord's choice on that occasion
is seen to be vindicated, for He has received
not merely authority over the kingdoms of
this world, but all authority in heaven and
on earth. Having recorded the manifesta-
tion of Jesus as the Christ, Matthew finishes
his gospel, as not improbably Mark had done
before him. ' The mountain where Jesus

116 THE APPEARANCE OF

had appointed them ' is mentioned in both
Luke and Mark, but not in Matthew, who
has disarranged his material. Luke says :
' He went out into the mountain to pray ;
and he continued all night in prayer to God.
And when it was day, he called his disciples :
and he chose from them twelve, whom
also he named apostles ' (vi. 12-13). Mark
says : ' And he goeth up into the mountain,
and calleth unto him whom he himself
would : and they went unto him. And he
appointed twelve, that they might be with
him, and that he might send them forth
to preach ' (iii. 13-14). There can be little
doubt but that this is the mountain which
Matthew has in mind as the scene of the
appearance in Galilee, and not simply some
other mountain which Jesus appointed for
the purpose. The connexion between the
two scenes on the mountain is lost in
Matthew, because through rearrangement of
his sources, necessitated by the plan he
has adopted for his gospel, all the emphasis
is put upon the sermon preached on the
mountain (v. 1), while the other fact, which
Luke makes plain, that it was upon the
same mountain and really on the mountain
and not practically at the bottom of it,
as seems to have been the case with the
sermon (Luke vi. 17) that immediately

OUR LORD IN GALILEE 117

before the apostles had been chosen. In the
original tradition we can hardly doubt both
scenes on the mountain must have been
recorded, and presumably in Mark, or the
mention of 'the mountain where Jesus had
appointed them ' by Matthew would seem
to be inexplicable. We have then beyond
reasonable question two incidents which
must have been recorded in the lost ending
of Mark, the appearance to Mary Magdalene
and her companions on Easter morning,
when the manifestation in Galilee was for
the second time foretold (cf. Mark xiv. 28,
Matt. xxvi. 32), and the climax 4 of the
gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God '
(Mark i. 1) in the appearance on the mountain
of the Son of Man in His resurrection glory
and fullness of divine authority.

Speaking to Mary our Lord had said
that His ascension would be the beginning
of a new type of friendship, c Touch me not ;
for I am not yet ascended unto the Father '
(John xx. 17). The combination of our
Lord's words to the women (Matt, xxviii. 10)
and to Mary Magdalene (John xx. 17) on
Easter morning, which we decided was
allowable, suggests that the appearance in
Galilee was but a preliminary to the ascension,
and the pledge of the reality of this new
and spiritual intimacy between Him and

118 THE APPEARANCE OF

His disciples, 'Lo, I am with you alway,
even unto the end of the world.' With this
assurance of the perpetual presence of the
glorified Jesus Matthew closes his gospel,
nothing more being necessary for the com-
pletion of his scheme. Luke adds an account
of our Lord's final departure from His dis-
ciples. In Acts he describes it much more
fully in language suggested by the assump-
tion of Elijah and the passing of Moses
as an ascension, the disciples gazing upon
Him in an ecstasy as He is taken up to
heaven, while Moses and Elijah themselves,
the representatives of the scriptures of the
Old Covenant, appear in glory, as at the
transfiguration and by the sepulchre, to bear
Him witness.

Our investigation has brought out many
points which are usually regarded as obscure
in the gospel story. It seems to be proved
beyond reasonable doubt that Luke is the
most original and reliable of the synoptic
gospels, and that it is quite inconceivable that
Mark is the basis of the other two and the
primary authority for the original evangelical
tradition. Frequently he has misunder-
stood his source, and where he elaborates
the earlier narrative of Luke he is not seldom
inaccurate, and it is plain that very often
his alterations are due, not to the posses-

OUR LORD IN GALILEE 119

sion of additional information, whether from
St. Peter or elsewhere, but to a desire to
bring out more clearly what he believes to
be the meaning of the story. John, on the
other hand, is much more reliable, and his
narrative not only fits in with, but frequently
elucidates, what we are told by Luke. In
view of its undoubtedly late date no stronger
evidence of its apostolic origin is conceivable.
We have seen too that from the time of
His baptism the dominant idea in our Lord's
life was the consciousness that He was the
Christ, both Son of God and Son of man.
The words attributed to John the Baptist
hailing Him as the Lamb of God that taketh
away the sin of the world are no anachronism
on the part of the fourth evangelist, but
express our Lord's own conviction that,
as the Servant of Jehovah, He had come
into the world to save sinners : in St. Paul's
words, to die for our sins, in His own, to
give His life a ransom for many.

With regard to the resurrection our
investigation has done nothing to discredit
the story of the empty tomb. We may
say, indeed, that the development of the
narrative which we have traced from Luke
to Mark and from Mark to Matthew, the
original story after many years being con-
firmed on many points by that of John,

120 OUR LORD IN GALILEE

would be quite inexplicable on any other
hypothesis than that of its truth. We have
seen what an important place ecstatic visions
take in the development of the gospel story,
in connexion with the resurrection and ascen-
sion, but also at other times of crisis, in the
history of the early Church, as well as in the
narratives of our Lord's birth and ministry.
The appearances of our Lord after His resur-
rection are seen to be of a quite different
order and very clearly distinguished from
visions of angels, the former being objective,
the latter subjective. Legendary accretion,
which has undoubtedly been at work, can-
not explain the fundamental facts, and no
explanation is conceivable except on the as-
sumption of their substantial accuracy. Our
criticism has shown the improbability of
certain of the details in later versions of the
Easter story, but it is hoped that it has done
something at any rate to vindicate the essen-
tial truth of the traditional faith of the
Church with regard to the resurrection of
her Lord.

Per Baptismum tuum,
Per Crucem et Passionem tuam,
Per gloriosam Resurrectionem tuam,
Per admirabilem Ascensionem tuam,
Libera nos, Domine.

THE NARRATIVES
OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH

Veni, redemptor gentium ;

Ostende partum virginis ;
Miretur omne saeculum,

Tails decet partus Deo.

Non ex virili semine,
Sed mystico spiramine,

Verbum Dei factum est caro,
Fructusque ventris floruit.

Alvus tumescit virginis,

Claustrum pudoris permanet ;
Vexilla virtutum micant,

Versatur in templo Deus.

CHAPTER I

ST. LUKE'S ACCOUNT

FEW, if any, of those who refuse to credit
the narratives of our Lord's resurrection
accept as historical the accounts of His
virgin birth. It will be well, therefore, to
give a similar critical investigation of the
stories given by the evangelists describing
the manner of His birth. According to our
contention that Luke preserves the earliest
evangelical tradition we should expect to
find the primary account in the third gospel,
but quite apart from this it will be generally
admitted that Luke's account on the whole
is more likely to be authentic than Matthew's.
Luke prefaces the story of our Lord's birth
by a similar story of the birth of John the
Baptist, and it will be impossible for us to
consider one apart from the other. In both
cases, as we have noticed, the announcement
of the birth is made during an ecstatic vision.
Such visions, whether recorded in scripture

124 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

or elsewhere, very commonly take place
during prayer, and this was the case at our
Lord's baptism, at the transfiguration, with
Cornelius, with Peter on the housetop, and
with Paul in the temple. We are not
actually told that Zacharias was praying
at the time of his vision, but the words of
the angel suggest it, ' Thy supplication is
heard ' (i. 13), and certainly it was a time
of prayer, for we are told * the whole multi-
tude of the people were praying ' (i. 10), and
Zacharias himself was offering incense, which
is a type of prayer. The vision was that
of an angel, and so comparable with that
vouchsafed to Mary, the shepherds, the
women at the sepulchre, and Cornelius, and
indeed others where the word angel is not
found. The angel is said to have ; appeared '
to Zacharias, this word being used also at
the transfiguration, at Pentecost, and at the
conversion of St. Paul. The angel is said
to be the ' angel of the Lord,' the usual Old
Testament expression to describe a mani-
festation of God in personal form, being
employed also by Luke of the appearance
to the shepherds, of the deliverance of the
apostles from prison (Acts v. 19), of the mes-
sage to Philip (viii. 26), of the deliverance

ST. LUKE'S ACCOUNT 125

of Peter (xii. 7), and the stroke of Herod
(xii. 23). It is found also four times in the
birth stories given by Matthew (i. 20, 24 ;
ii. 13, 19). The angel appeared ' standing.'
The same verb or compounds of it is
employed in the stories of the shepherds,
of the transfiguration, of the women at
the sepulchre, of the ascension, and of the
supposed vision of Peter (Acts xii. 7). The
angel was seen on the 'right' side of the
altar of incense. Mention of the ' right '
side or hand is common in descriptions of
visions, both in scripture and elsewhere. *
To Stephen our Lord appeared on the right
hand of God, and according to Mark the
angel in the sepulchre is seated on the
'right ' side, while in the vision of Zechariah
Satan stands at the ' right ' hand of Joshua
(Zech. iii. 1). Zacharias was ' troubled ' at
the vision, the same being said also of Mary
and of the women at the sepulchre. ' Fear '
also fell upon him, the same effect being
produced upon Mary, the shepherds, the
apostles at the transfiguration, the women
at the sepulchre, and Cornelius. Zacharias
is bidden, ' Fear not,' the same injunction
being given in the visions of Mary, the

1 See pp. 46-7.

126 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

shepherds, and St. Paul, both at Corinth and
on the ship, and according to Matthew to
the women at the tomb. The appearance
is called a ' vision,' the description given to
that of the two angels at the sepulchre, of
Jesus to St. Paul at his conversion, and of
the angel to Cornelius. The ecstatic phrase-
ology of the account of the announcement
of the birth of John the Baptist to Zacharias
is thus very prominent, and the place of
the vision in the Gospel scheme of ecstatic
visions is plain.

In the account of the vision of Mary in
which the birth of Jesus was announced the
characteristic phraseology is not nearly so
abundant, though it is sufficiently apparent.
Again, as to Zacharias, we have the appear-
ance of an angel. Like him she was greatly
'troubled,' and like him afraid. To her as
to Zacharias the angel says ' Fear not.'
Mention of the ecstatic details does not
exhaust the similarity of the two accounts.
In outline and to a large extent in phrase-
ology the narratives are identical, and they
were evidently drawn up on the same model.
A comparison of the two in parallel columns
is most illuminating.

ST. LUKE'S ACCOUNT

127

MARY
St. Luke i. 26-38.

26-7 Now in the sixth
month the angel Gabriel
was sent from God unto
a city of Galilee, named
Nazareth, to [a virgin]
a virgin betrothed to a man
whose name was Joseph,
of the house of David ;

and the virgin's name was
Mary.

28 And he came in unto
her, and said, Hail, thou
that art highly favoured,
the Lord is with thee.

29 But she was greatly
troubled at the saying, and
cast in her mind what
manner of salutation this
might be.

30 And the angel said
unto her,

Fear not, Mary : for thou
hast found favour with God.

31 And behold, thou shalt
conceive in thy womb, and
bring forth a son,

and shalt call his name
Jesus.

32 He shall be great, and
shall be called the Son of
the Most High :

ZACHABJAS
St. Luke i. 5-23.

[19 And the angel
answering said unto him,
I am Gabriel, that stand in
the presence of God ; and I
was sent to speak unto thee.]

5 There was in the days
of Herod, king of Judaea,
a certain priest named
Zacharias, of the course
of Abijah : and he had a
wife of the daughters of
Aaron,

and her name was Elisa-
beth. . . .

11 And there appeared
unto him an angel of the
Lord standing on the right
side of the altar of incense.

12 And Zacharias was
troubled when he saw him,
and fear fell upon him.

13 But the angel said
unto him,

Fear not, Zacharias : because
thy supplication is heard,
and thy wife Elisabeth shall
bear thee a son,

and thou shalt call his
name John. ...

15-16 For he shall be
great in the sight of the
Lord, and he shall drink no
wine nor strong drink ;

128 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

MARY

and the Lord God shall
give unto him the throne
of his father David :

33 And he shall reign
over the house of Jacob for
ever ; and of his kingdom
there shall be no end.

34 And Mary said unto
the angel,

How shall this be, seeing I
know not a man ?

35 And the angel
answered and said unto her,
The Holy Ghost shall come
upon thee, and the power
of the Most High shall over-
shadow thee : wherefore
also that which is to be
born shall be called holy,
the Son of God.

36 And behold, Elisabeth
thy kinswoman, she also
hath conceived a son in
her old age : and this is
thejjsixth month with her
that was called barren.

87-8 For no word from
God shall be void of power.

ZACHABIAS

and he shall be filled with
the Holy Ghost, even from
his mother's womb. And
many of the children of
Israel shall he turn unto the
Lord their God.

17 And he shall go before
his face in the spirit and
power of Elijah, to turn
the hearts of the fathers
to the children, and the
disobedient to walk in the
wisdom of the just ; to make
ready for the Lord a people
prepared for him.

18 And Zacharias said
unto the angel,
Whereby shall I know this ?
for I am an old man, and
my wife well stricken in
years.

19 And the angel
answering said unto him,

I am Gabriel, that stand
in the presence of God;
and I was sent to speak
unto thee, and to bring
thee these good tidings.

20 And behold, thou shalt
be silent and not able to
speak, until the day that
these things shall come to
pass,

because thou believedst not
my words, which shall be

ST. LUKE'S ACCOUNT 129

MARY ZACHABJAS

And Mary said. Behold, fulfilled in their season. . . .

the handmaid of the Lord ;

be it unto me according

to thy word.

And the angel departed 23 And ... he departed

from her. unto his house.

The comparison shows that practically
every detail in the account of the vision
of Mary is paralleled in that of the vision
of Zacharias. Whether in word or general
outline the agreement between two different
narratives could scarcely be closer. The
primary authority for the virgin birth is to
be found in w. 34-35, and very frequently
we are told, by a large number of writers, that
these words or sometimes only the latter
part of v. 34, ' seeing I know not a man '
are interpolated. 1 The parallel columns
make it quite plain that neither suggestion
is possible. The statement with regard to
the virgin birth stands or falls with the rest
of the story, and it is clearly an essential
element of Luke's narrative. It is as
necessary for the parallelism, which we can-
not suppose was left for an interpolator to
complete, as any other of the details of the
narrative, while the phraseology, we note,

1 For lists of authorities see Moffatt, Introduction to
the Literature of the New Testament, pp. 268-9.

K

130 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

is quite Lucan. The authority for the
story as recorded in the third gospel ulti-
mately must have been the mother of our
Lord, for much of the information no one
else could possibly have supplied. Much
of Luke's material, however, seems to have
been derived from the apostle St. John, 1
and among passages traceable to this source
the birth narratives would seem to be in-
cluded. In view of the statement in the
fourth gospel' from that hour the disciple
took her unto his own home ' (xix. 27) no
more likely authority could well be imagined.

1 See ' The Origin of the Gospels,' C.Q.R., July, 1922.

CHAPTER II

ST. MATTHEW'S ACCOUNT

THE virgin birth is also recorded in Matthew
in a passage peculiar to that gospel. In
phraseology, however, there is considerable
agreement with what we find in Luke. It
will be useful to set out the whole narrative
as given in the first gospel, putting into
parallel columns the phrases of Luke which
correspond.

MATTHEW i. LUKE i. and ii.

18 Now the birth of ii. 11 There is born . . .

Jesus Christ was on this a Saviour, which is Christ

wise : the Lord.

When his mother Mary i.27 To a virgin betrothed

had been betrothed to to a man whose name was

Joseph, before they came Joseph.

together she was found with ii. 4-5 Joseph . . . with

child of the Holy Ghost. Mary, who was betrothed

to him, being great with
child.

i. 31, 35 Thou shalt con-
ceive in thy womb . . .
The Holy Ghost shall come
upon thee.

132 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

MATTHEW i.

19 And Joseph her hus-
band, being a righteous
man,

and not willing to make her
a public example,
was minded to put her
away privily.

20 But when he thought
on these things,

behold, an angel of the
Lord appeared unto him
in a dream,

saying, Joseph, thou son
of David,

fear not

to take unto thee Mary
thy wife :

for that which is conceived
in her is of the Holy Ghost.

21 And she shall bring
forth a son ;

and thou shalt call his
name Jesus ;

for it is he that shall save
his people from their sins.

LUKE i. and ii.

i. 6 They were both
righteous before God.

ii. 25 This man was
righteous and devout.
[DEUT. xxiv. 1.]

[MATT. v. 32 ; xix. 9.]

ii. 19 But Mary kept all
these sayings, pondering
them in her heart.

i. 11 There appeared unto
him an angel of the Lord.
[MATT. i. 20 ; ii. 12, 13, 19,
22 ; xxvii. 19.]

i. 27 Joseph, of the house
of David.

ii. 4 Joseph ... of the
house and family of David.

i. 13 Fear not, Zacharias.

i. 30 Fear not, Mary.

ii. 4-5 Joseph also went
up ... to enrol himself
with Mary, who was be-
trothed to him.

i. 31, 35 Thou shalt con-
ceive in thy womb. . . .
The Holy Ghost shall come
upon thee . . . wherefore
also that which is to be born
shall be called holy.

i. 31 And behold, thou
shalt . . . bring forth a son.

i. 31 And behold, thou
. . . shalt call his name
Jesus.

[ACTS iv. 12 ; v. 31 ; xiii.
23-24, 38.]

ST. MATTHEW'S ACCOUNT 133

MATTHEW i.

22 Now all this is come
to pass, that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken
by the Lord through the
prophet, saying,

23 Behold, the virgin
shall be with child, and
shall bring forth a son, and
they shall call his name
Immanuel ; which is, being
interpreted, God with us.

24 And Joseph arose
from his sleep, and did as
the angel of the Lord com-
manded him,

and took unto him his wife ;

25 And knew her not till
she had brought forth a
son :

and he called his name
Jesus.

LUKE i. and ii.

[MATT. i. 22; ii. 15, 17, 23;
iv. 14s ; viii. 17 ; xii.
17 ; xiii. 35 ; xxi. 4 ;
xxvii. 9.]

[Is. vii. 14.]

ii. 9, 15 And an angel of
the Lord stood by them.
. . . And it came to pass,
when the angels went away
from them into heaven, the
shepherds said one to an-
other, Let us now go ...
and see this thing . . .
which the Lord hath made
known unto .us.

ii. 4-5 And Joseph also
went up ... to enrol him-
self with Mary, who was
betrothed to him.

ii. 7 And she brought
forth her first-born son.

ii. 21 And ... his name
was called Jesus.

A study of the parallel columns makes
it plain that in ideas and phraseology the
narratives of Matthew and Luke have much
in common, and can scarcely be independent.
If we examine the Greek we find an even more

134 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

striking similarity, for in various places we
see the words and phrases of Luke repeated
in Matthew with no alteration.

Matthew's narrative, whatever its source,
leads up to the first of the ten special
prophecies which the evangelist quotes as
being fulfilled in the life of our Lord. The
peculiarity of these ten prophecies often
pointed out, is that the translation frequently
disagrees with what we find in the Septua-
gint, and apparently they are taken, not
directly from the scriptures, but from a
collection of Old Testament testimonies in-
tended to illustrate the life of our Lord,
which, being drawn up in Hebrew, or more
probably in Aramaic, was translated into
Greek apparently by the evangelist himself,
so far as he used it. One of the passages,
'that he should be called a Nazarene,' has
no counterpart in the Old Testament unless,
as the appeal is to ' prophets,' not to a
prophet, the reference is to the various
prophecies of the Branch (Aram, nasura ;
Heb. neser ; Is. xi. 1 ; Jer. xxiii, 5, xxxiii.
15 ; Zech. iii. 8, vi. 12). Another prophecy
illustrating the triumphant entry, is really
a combination of words from Isaiah (Ixii. 11)
and Zechariah (ix. 9). Also the prophecy
with regard to the thirty pieces of silver,

ST. MATTHEW'S ACCOUNT 135

which we are told is taken from Jeremiah, as
a matter of fact appears to be based chiefly on
Zechariah (xi. 12-13), though perhaps also on
Jeremiah xxxii. 6-15, with reminiscences of
Jeremiah xviii. 1-6, xix. 11). The evangelist
seems to be using a set of Old Testament
oracles which had come to him orally, not
in writing, the inaccuracies and conflation of
different texts being exactly such as we
should expect in the course of oral trans-
mission. Of the apostle Matthew Papias
tells us, according to Eusebius, i So then
Matthew compiled the oracles in the Hebrew
language, and each one interpreted them as
he was able.' 1 It seems not unreasonable
to identify this collection of Logia compiled
by the apostle with that used by the evan-
gelist in the gospel which bears Matthew's
name. The prophecy of Micah (v. 2), that
Christ should be born at Bethlehem, which is
quoted by the chief priests and scribes to
Herod, evidently belongs to the same set,
the Greek differing widely from that of the
Septuagint. As it appears without the
introductory formula which is found before
each of the ten prophecies, it suggests that,
as in so many other cases in the gospel, the
emphasis on the ten words is due to the

1 Hist. Eccl. iii. 39 ; P.G. xx. col. 300.

136 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

evangelist, and is to be explained as part
of the numerical scheme according to which
the book was written, threes, fives, sevens,
tens, and fourteens abounding. There seems
to be no reason to suppose that the evangelist
utilised all the testimonies contained in the
collection, but only such as served his
purpose. If, as seems plain, the narrative
which leads up to the prophecy of Isaiah
with regard to the virgin who should con-
ceive, is dependent on Luke, the writer
is evidently to be distinguished from the
compiler of the prophecies, in Hebrew or
Aramaic, which is exactly in accord with
what Papias says, the former in all
probability being the evangelist himself.
Apart from a tradition of the virgin birth
we can hardly imagine that the words of
Isaiah vii. 14 would ever have been quoted
as illustrating the life of Jesus. At any rate
the fact that the Hebrew word would be
more correctly translated ' young woman,'
or ' maiden,' may be regarded as evidence
that it cannot have been the prophecy which
suggested the doctrine and story, as is some-
times declared, particularly as the earlier nar-
rative in Luke says nothing of the prophecy.
If we consider the ten prophecies we find
that five of them are inserted as proofs from

ST. MATTHEW'S ACCOUNT 137

scripture of details recorded in Mark, and
the prophecy is added to the narrative of
the source without any introductory matter,
again suggesting that the incidents which
the testimonies were intended to illustrate
were supposed to be well known, and that
there was no accompanying narrative in the
source from which they were taken. What
is true of these five prophecies is probably
true of all the ten, and, if so, presumably
of all the extracts from the Old Testament
assembled in the evangelist's source. All
the evidence is thus against the idea that
it was from this source, which apparently
in itself was a bare collection of texts with
no explanatory matter, that the evangelist
gained his primary knowledge of the events
they were regarded as illustrating. To a
person with no previous information of these
incidents indeed they would be for the most
part quite unintelligible. Yet it can scarcely
be denied that in several cases the prophecy
has modified the story. We read, for ex-
ample, of two animals, an ass and a colt,
in the Palm Sunday procession, suggested
clearly by the words of Zechariah (ix. 9),
though by a misunderstanding of the poetic
form, in which the ass is the colt. Similarly
in the account of the treachery of Judas we

138 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

read of ' thirty pieces of silver ' where the
other synoptic gospels speak simply of
c money,' the change again being evidently
due to the prophecy of Zechariah (xi. 13).
In the story of Judas' repentance we are told
that he brought back the thirty pieces of
silver, and the chief priests and elders took
them, that it was they who bought the
field, and that the field was the potter's
field, whereas Luke says that Judas himself
bought the field (Acts i. 18), and makes no
mention of the potter, the modifications
almost certainly being traceable to the words
of the prophet (or prophets). It is not
improbable that the writer of the first gospel
was acquainted with the tradition with regard
to Judas incorporated in the first chapter of
the Acts, but even so he must have had
other information, for the statement that
the field was ' to bury strangers in,' which
can hardly have been invented, is suggested
by nothing in Acts or Zechariah. The
probability would seem to be that in every
instance the evangelist had other knowledge
of the incidents illustrated than any which
could be derived from the prophecies them-
selves, and that in no case is it likely that
the nucleus of the story, apart from details,
is an invention on the basis of the prophecy.
On such a hypothesis it would have to be

ST. MATTHEW'S ACCOUNT 139

explained why such imaginary stories are
so few. Presumably with the Hebrew or
Aramaic Logia there was transmitted a
certain amount of oral information, so far
as literary form is concerned not yet fixed,
explaining the applicability of the testi-
monies, and giving the main outline of the
incident illustrated. The view that our Lord
was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver was
surely something more than a supposition of
the evangelist on the basis of the prophecy
when he wrote his account of Judas' bargain
with the chief priests (Matt. xxvi. 14-15),
and must already have become part of the
tradition, or one line of it. Similarly the
belief that Joseph had thoughts of divorcing
Mary on the ground of fornication must
have become a well-established element in
the evangelical tradition as known to him,
or his circle, before our Lord's own words
could be modified so as to allow divorce, not
for adultery, but for fornication, prenuptial
sin, 1 by the addition of the excepting clauses,
' Every one that putteth away his wife

1 The Greek word means strictly fornication, but it is
frequently Used of unchastity in general. It cannot be
limited to adultery, as is commonly supposed. The words
of the gospel must mean either that divorce is allowable
for fornication in the strict sense of prenuptial sin, or that
it is allowable for fornication in the general sense, that is,
for any form of impurity.

140 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

(saving for the cause of fornication) maketh
her an adulteress,' c Whosoever shall put
away his wife (except for fornication) and
shall marry another, committeth adultery '
(Matt. v. 32, xix. 9 ; cf. Luke xvi. 18 ;
Mark x. 11). We cannot imagine that the
evangelist made so great an alteration en-
tirely on his own responsibility. If such a
tradition existed, it must have been part of
that body of information, orally transmitted,
by which alone the collection of prophecies
was intelligible. If comparatively unim-
portant details of the story had their place
in this line of tradition, it confirms the view
that the doctrine of the virgin birth was
already generally accepted.

The truth about the manner of the
virgin's conception was made known to
Joseph by an angel of the Lord who appeared
to him ' in a dream ' (i. 20). The phrase is
found six times in the first gospel, but
nowhere else in the New Testament. Five
times it occurs in the narratives concerned
with our Lord's birth and infancy, and once
in the story of Pilate's wife. It is not un-
common in the Old Testament (Gen. xx.
3, 6 ; xxxi. 10, 11, 24 ; Num. xii. 6 ; 1 Kings
iii. 5), and probably its use in Matthew is
thence derived. What exactly the evangelist

ST. MATTHEW'S ACCOUNT 141

meant by 'in a dream ' is not very plain,
but it is evidently to be distinguished from
* in an ecstasy ' of Luke (Acts xi. 5, xxii. 17).
Properly perhaps the phrase denotes a night
vision, such as we hear of in connexion with
St. Paul (Acts xvi. 9, xviii. 9, xxiii. 11, xxvii.
23), distinct from an ecstasy, yet having much
in common. As used by the evangelist,
however, the words, sometimes at any rate,
seem little more than a formula, and are
probably not to be taken literally. Three
times a longer phrase is used (i. 20, ii. 13, 19 ;
cf. Gen. xxxi. 11). That there was a com-
munication from heaven is clearly intended
by the evangelist, but in two cases at least
(ii. 12, 22) it probably implies no more than
that those concerned were moved by God
to take a certain course of action, as perhaps
in the case of Philip (Acts viii. 26), and
according to the scribes of St. Paul (Acts
xxiii. 9). On these two occasions no details
of the message are given. On two others
(ii. 13, 20) the words ascribed to the angel
of the Lord seem to follow a formula derived
apparently from the words of the angel of
God to Hagar (Gen. xxi. 18). On the
occasion when the message of the angel is
given at length (i. 20-21) the phraseology,
as we have noticed, is almost entirely Lucan.

142 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

Though the substance of the birth stories
is apparently part of the evangelical tradition
as current in the evangelist's circle, yet
much of the detail and the literary form
would appear to be his own. The incident
of the dream of Pilate's wife, in which
likewise the phrase occurs, has apparently
the same literary origin, but, as this is quite
independent of any Old Testament prophecy,
we have further evidence that the narratives
introducing the prophecies do not belong to
the Logia source, but in their present form
are the work of the evangelist ; nor in this
case can it possibly be argued that the story
is an invention on the basis of an Old
Testament text. If our argument is correct,
the accounts of our Lord's birth and infancy
given in the first gospel afford evidence of
several distinct, if not entirely independent,
traditions of the virgin birth that recorded
by St. Luke, that to which the collection of
prophecies bears witness, and that which
made the prophecies intelligible as illus-
trating the life of Jesus. The very existence
of the stories in his gospel is evidence of the
currency of the doctrine in the circle in
which the evangelist moved, and he gives
it the seal of his own authority.

CHAPTER III

THE FAMILY AT NAZARETH

THE stories of our Lord's birth and infancy
given in the first gospel are written from
the point of view of Joseph, whereas those of
the third gospel are written from the point
of view of Mary. Any source then from
which the first evangelist could have gained
his information must have been somehow con-
nected with Joseph. Certainty may be im-
possible, but it will be useful to enquire
into the possible origin of the tradition which
forms the basis of his narrative, and so doing
we shall find still further evidence for the
truth of the virgin birth, or at any rate that
it was the ordinary Christian belief in quite
early days. According to Luke, in the
synagogue of Nazareth the question of the
people was, ' Is not this Joseph's son ? ' (iv. 22).
According to Mark it was, 4 Is not this the
carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of
James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon ?

144 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

and are not his sisters here with us ? ' (vi. 3).
According to Matthew, it was, 'Is not this
the carpenter's son ? is not his mother
called Mary ? and his brethren, James, and
Joseph, and Simon, and Judas ? And his
sisters, are they not all with us ? ' (xiii. 55-
56). According to John, a similar question
was asked in the synagogue at Capernaum,
' Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose
father and mother we know ? ' (vi. 42).
Mark, who gives no story of the virgin birth,
is the only evangelist who does not speak
of Jesus as the son of Joseph. ' Son of
Joseph ' would surely be much more natural
than ' son of Mary ' on the lips of the people
of Nazareth, or indeed of anyone who knew
the family, for the mystery of His birth
would hardly be public knowledge. Nor is
it likely that the question was intended to
give expression to a charge sometimes made
against Him in later days, and perhaps
alluded to in the statement of the Jews
according to John, ' We were not born of
fornication ' (viii. 41), that He was a bastard.
The whole form of the question, with its
reference to brothers and sisters, is against
this, as indeed the whole context, and had it
been intended it would surely not have
survived in Mark's account only. The fact

THE FAMILY AT NAZARETH 145

that Luke and Matthew agree against Mark
in describing Jesus as the son of Joseph
not only supports our contention that Mark
cannot be the primary record, but suggests
that the change in Mark has been made on
doctrinal grounds, and is intended to safe-
guard the truth about the virgin birth, to
which otherwise the second gospel makes
no reference. If so, Mark, as well as Luke
and Matthew, is a witness to the virgin
birth. Mark records a different tradition
from that in Luke with regard to the visit
to Nazareth, yet not improbably we may
rely on his version of the question of the
people of Nazareth as containing at any rate
the substance of what was said, ' Is not this
the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother
of James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon ?
and are not his sisters here with us ? ' (vi. 3).
Mark evidently intended to augment the
narrative of Luke at this point, but even
if his addition in this connexion were merely
interpretative and corresponded to nothing
actually said on the occasion, his words
must surely be due to an authentic tradition
with regard to the household at Nazareth.
We seem thus to have good evidence that in
popular estimation Jesus was regarded as
the Son of Joseph and Mary, and Brother of

.L

146 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon,
and several sisters. Of one of the Lord's
brethren we hear a great deal in the early
history of the church, because of the
prominent position he held among the
Christians at Jerusalem (Acts xii. 17, xv. 13,
xxi. 18 ; Gal. i. 19, ii. 9, 12), and in some
sense, which we must try to determine, he
was evidently regarded as an apostle (1 Cor.
xv. 7 ; Gal. i. 19).

CHAPTER IV

THE APOSTLES OF CHRIST

BEFORE we can come to any decision with
regard to the exact nature and significance
of the apostleship of James it will be
necessary to consider the exact meaning of
the word apostle. Its primary and etymo-
logical meaning is a messenger, or legate
(John xiii. 16 ; 2 Cor. viii. 23 ; Phil. ii. 25 ;
Heb. iii. 1). 'The very chiefest apostles,'
as St. Paul calls them (2 Cor. xi. 5, xii. 11),
were evidently the twelve who had been
called (Mark i. 16-20 ; Luke v. 27), and
appointed by Jesus (Luke vi. 13-16), and,
having seen Him after He had risen, were
able to be witnesses of His resurrection.
St. Paul's call to be the ' apostle of the
Gentiles ' (Rom. xi. 13) was at His con-
version (Acts ix. 6, 15 ; xxvi. 16-17), but his
commission, or separation, as an apostle
(Rom. i. 1) would appear to have been when
with Barnabas he was sent forth by the

148 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

prophets from Antioch. For both him and
Barnabas this was a solemn commissioning
of those whom God had called (Acts xiii. 2),
and the beginning of their apostolate, which
later was ratified when James, Cephas, and
John gave them the right hand of fellowship
that they should go to the Gentiles (Gal. ii. 9).
Before this commissioning at Antioch we
read of no other apostles but the twelve,
but immediately afterwards Paul and Barna-
bas are called apostles (Acts xiv. 4, 14). It
is perhaps of such apostleship, charismatic
in origin, that St. Paul speaks to the Corin-
thians (1 Cor. xii. 28-29; cf. Eph. ii. 20,
iii. 5). St. Paul describes himself as ' called
to be an apostle ' (Rom. i. 1 ; 1 Cor. i. 1),
but he does not claim for his commission
more than that it was ' through the will of
God ' (1 Cor. i. 1 ; 2 Cor. i. 1 ; Eph. i. 1 ;
Col. i. 1 ; 2 Tim. i. 1), ' according to the
commandment of God our Saviour ' (1 Tim.
i. 1). Viewed in connexion with these other
statements even the stronger claim in the
epistle to the Galatians (i. 1), that he was an
apostle ' not from men, neither through
man, but through Jesus Christ, and God
the Father,' cannot be interpreted as meaning
more than his call did not have its origin
in man, and that his commission and

THE APOSTLES OF CHRIST 149

separation for the work were not by the will
and commandment of men. In a common
apostleship with himself St. Paul seems to
include Silvanus (1 Thes. ii. 6) and perhaps
Apollos (1 Cor. iv. 9). Of the call of these
we are told nothing, but St. Paul would
probably have regarded Silvanus and
Apollos as apostles ' from men,' or ' through
man.' Of a commission of Silvanus we read
in connexion with the council of Jerusalem
(Acts xv. 25, 27, 33), but not of Apollos on
any occasion. Andronicus and Junias, pre-
sumably Jews of Jerusalem or the neighbour-
hood, also seem to be accounted apostles
(Rom. xvi. 7), but of neither their call nor
commission are we told anything. We read
also of false apostles, ' fashioning themselves
into apostles of Christ ' (2 Cor. xi. 13),
4 which call themselves apostles, and they
are not' (Rev. ii. 2). In his own case St.
Paul lays emphasis on the fact that he had
seen the risen Lord. He says, * Am I not
an apostle ? have -I not seen Jesus our
Lord ? ' (1 Cor. ix. 1). ' Then he appeared
to James ; then to all the apostles ; and last
of all, as unto one born out of due time,
he appeared to me also. For I am the least
of the apostles, that am not meet to be
called an apostle, because I persecuted the

150 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

church of God ' (1 Cor. xv. 7-9). But
though to have seen Jesus after He had risen
was necessary for one who like Matthias
was to be joined with the eleven as a witness
of the resurrection (Acts i. 21-22), and was
therefore important for St. Paul who claimed
equality with 4 the very chief est apostles,'
it was hardly necessary for ordinary apostle-
ship. Whatever their pretensions we have
no evidence that the false apostles at either
Corinth or Ephesus made this claim, and it is
improbable. The proof of his apostleship
St. Paul finds, not in the fact that he had
seen the Lord, though he counts this a
very high privilege, but in the manifest
effects of his work (1 Cor. ix. 2 ; 2 Cor. xi.
5-6 ; xii. 12 ; Gal. ii. 8). We are not told
that our Lord Himself commissioned other
apostles beside the twelve, and certainly to
have seen the risen Lord apart from a com-
mission was not regarded as conferring
apostleship, or there would have been no
need to ordain Matthias, and there would
have been no point in the name ' apostle,'
so that when St. Paul tells us that Jesus was
seen by ' all the apostles ' (1 Cor. xv. 7) he
can hardly be referring to anyone not of the
twelve, or to those who at some later time
had been commissioned as apostles, When

THE APOSTLES OF CHRIST 151

therefore we read ' Then he appeared to
James ; then to all the apostles ' (1 Cor. xv.
7), the presumption is that James was an
apostle in the same sense as the rest. Other
references to James seem to support this
conclusion. When the apostles and elders
came together at Jerusalem to consider the
question of the circumcision of the Gentiles,
James appears to have been president, and
to have made the decision, ' My judgement
is ' (Acts xv. 19). It is difficult to suppose
that one who was an apostle in only a
secondary sense could have so acted in the
presence of Peter. Again, St. Paul says,
' I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas,
and tarried with him fifteen days. But
other of the apostles saw I none, save James
the Lord's brother' (Gal. i. 18-19; cf. 17).
The natural interpretation of this is not only
that James was an apostle, but that his
apostleship was of exactly the same type
as Peter's. Once more St. Paul says, ' James
and Cephas and John, they who were re-
puted to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas
the right hands of fellowship, that we should
go unto the Gentiles, and they unto the
circumcision ' (Gal. ii. 9). It would be very
extraordinary if the first name were that
of the one who was only an apostle in a

152 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

secondary sense, two of c the very chiefest
apostles ' (2 Cor. xi. 5, xii. 11) giving place,
even though he held high position in the
church at Jerusalem (Acts xii. 17, xxi. 18),
particularly as it was not primarily a
Jerusalem question. It is much more natural
to suppose that he was one of the twelve.
It might perhaps be possible to explain
away any one of these four passages which
seem to reckon James among the twelve, if
it stood alone, but it is much more difficult
to resist their combined testimony, and to
attempt it is rather like special pleading.

Among the twelve according to each of
the four lists there were two bearing the
name of James, James who was ' the son of
Zebedee,' though not so called in Luke's
lists, and 'James the son of Alphseus,' so
called in each of the lists (Luke vi. 15,
Mark iii. 18, Matt. x. 3, Acts i. 13). The
son of Zebedee was martyred by Herod at
an early date (Acts xii. 2), so that if James
the Lord's brother was one of the twelve he
must be identified with James the son of
Alphseus. But how could a son of Alphseus
be regarded as a brother of Jesus ?

CHAPTER V

THE BEETHEEN OF THE LOED

ACCOEDING to Luke at the sepulchre on
Easter morning were ' Mary Magdalene, and
Joanna, and Mary the mother of James '
(xxiv. 10). James, who was the son of this
Mary, was evidently a person presumed to
be well known to Luke's readers, either as
holding some prominent position in the
church, or as having been already mentioned
in the gospel. In the former case we at
once think of James the Lord's brother,
who at the period when Luke wrote would
be the one person naturally understood by
' James.' In the latter the only possible
person would be James the son of Alphseus
the same person, if our contention be
correct for James the son of Zebedee had
been martyred, and James the father of
Judas (vi. 16) is merely a name. According
to Mark among the women standing by the
cross of Jesus were ' Mary Magdalene, and

154 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN! BIRTH

Mary the mother of James the little and of
Joses ' (xv. 40), at the tomb on Good Friday
evening ' Mary Magdalene, and Mary the
mother of Joses ' (xv. 47), and on Easter
morning ' Mary Magdalene, and Mary the
mother of James, and Salome ' (xvi. 1). The
second Mary is clearly the same on each
occasion, and must be the same person as
4 Mary the mother of James ' of Luke (xxiv.
10). Mark's additions to the narrative are
plainly explanatory and somewhat artificial,
and would be pointless unless James and
Joses were well-known characters, for the
mother is to be distinguished by her sons.
The only two brethren James and Joses
otherwise known either in the gospel story,
or indeed in the New Testament, are those
called the brethren of Jesus. The natural
interpretation of Mark's words is that he
is referring to these, whom he had already
mentioned, and not to two other brothers of
the same names otherwise unknown, and
that the three variants in the description
of Mary are due to the influence of the
tradition of Mark vi. 3 modifying the simpler
description of Luke (xxiv. 10). Though not
impossible the existence of two such pairs
of brothers, not only bearing the same names,
but with these names in exactly the same

THE BRETHREN OF THE LORD 155

sequence, would certainly be rather extra-
ordinary, while if they really existed, that
the evangelist should take no pains to dis-
tinguish them, though mentioning one or
other of the second pair on several occasions
seems wellnigh incredible. But if James and
Joses the sons of Mary are to be identified
with the Lord's brethren, according to our
argument James would be James the son
of Alphseus, the apostle, the second James
of the apostolic band. Thus we see a
special reason why this James should be
called c the little,' to distinguish him from
the other apostle of the same name, James
the son of Zebedee.

According to Luke then the second Mary
would seem to be the mother of James the
Lord's brother, or of James the son of
Alphaeus, if our argument is correct the
same person, and according to Mark the
mother of James and Joses the Lord's
brethren. According to John, however,
there were standing by the cross of Jesus
' his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary
the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene '
(xix. 25). The most natural interpretation
of these words in accordance with gram-
matical principles is that three persons only
are intended, and that 'his mother's sister '

156 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

is 'Mary the wife of Clopas.' This would
agree with the way in which the conjunction
' and ' is used elsewhere in the gospel, as
for example ' Martha, and her sister, and
Lazarus ' (xi. 5), and in the appendix ' Simon
Peter, and ' Thomas called Didymus, and
Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the
sons of Zebedee, and two other of his
disciples ' (xxi. 2). It is true that in the
list of the apostles given in Matthew the
conjunction ' and ' is used only in the
middle of each pair of names, and likewise
to some extent in the list given in Acts,
but in these cases there is no ambiguity,
each person being mentioned by his proper
name, and not merely by a description as
with the first pair of women in John, if four
were intended. That in a list of four
persons connected by ' and ' in the middle
of each pair two should be referred to by
descriptions, and two by their names is in
itself improbable. It is much more likely
that only three women are mentioned.
Probably also the wife of Clopas is 'the other
Mary,' the mother of James. Otherwise of
the many women at the cross of Jesus four
of the six mentioned by name would be
named Mary, Mary our Lord's mother, Mary
the wife of Clopas, Mary Magdalene and Mary

THE BRETHREN OF THE LORD 157

the mother of James and Joses, not of course
an impossibility, but certainly a very re-
markable coincidence. That three should
have been named Mary would be much less
extraordinary, and all three being mentioned
together by John there can be no possibility
of reducing the number by any other process
of identification. That there were only three
women named Mary at the cross is also
suggested by other considerations than those
of probability. Clopas and Alphseus may
not unreasonably be regarded as two forms
of the same name, as in later days Clovis
and Aloysius, 1 or at any rate as equivalent
names like Jesus and Jason (Col. iv. 11 ;
Rom. xvi. 21). The strongest and indeed
practically the only really cogent argument
against their identification is the fact that
in the Syriac versions of the gospels the
identity has not been recognised. It is true
that in some cases the Peshito restores the
original form of certain Aramaic names
which in the Greek of the gospels had been
grecised, as Zabdai for Zebedaios, but this
is not always the case, for not only do we
find Juchanon for Johannes but also Jochana

1 Mill, The Accounts of our Lord's Brethren, p. 236 ; see
Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, i. 74-5 ; Encyclopaedia
Biblica, col. 849.

158 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

for Jochanan, where the influence of the
Greek is still apparent. 1 Indeed, when we
remember the lapse of time and the change
of conditions between the writing of the
gospels and the date of the Syriac versions,
it would be very astonishing if the identity
of the original of Clopas and Alphseus had
been recognised, and, even if recognised,
very improbable that the same form of the
name would be used to translate both. We
remember, too, how frequently when a
document is translated from one language
to another the equivalent proper name,
however well known, is not used, but a
transliteration of the name as it appears in
the document being translated, as we note
in the case of Old Testament names appearing
in the New Testament in the authorised
English version, where we find still the
Greek form of the name as Elias, Esaias,
Jeremias, Noe, Sodoma, etc., or in the case
of Greek names Timotheus, Marcus, Lucas,
etc., and in the Book of Common Prayer
in the kalendar on May 1 Jacob for James,
a literal translation from the Latin. In
view of the wide liberty to be found in the
New Testament in putting Aramaic names
into a Greek form, some appearing in more

1 Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 261.

THE BRETHREN OF THE LORD 159

than one, and indeed the general freedom
in such matters in other languages, the
objections raised to the identity of Clopas
and Alphseus seem largely to vanish. There
need be little hesitation therefore in seeing
in Mary the wife of Clopas, who was the
sister of the mother of Jesus, the wife of
Alphseus who was the father of James, the
second apostle of the name, whom we have
identified with James the little and James
the Lord's brother, the Lord's brethren
being thus the sons of His mother's sister.

That Mary the wife of Clopas was the
sister of the mother of Jesus in the sense
that both were children of the same parents,
or parent, seems very improbable, for two
sisters by blood would surely not both be
named Mary. By sister we should probably
understand sister-in-law, the sister of Joseph,
or the wife of her brother, who would thus
be Clopas or Alphaeus. If we accept the
testimony of Hegesippus and combine it
with that of the fourth gospel, it would
appear to be the latter. Hegesippus clearly
knew nothing of the family of our Lord at
first hand, and some of his statements as,
for example, his description of the martyr-
dom of St. James, drawn perhaps from the
apocryphal 'Ascents of James,' are hardly

160 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

trustworthy, but his very precise description
of the exact relationship of Simeon, the
successor of James at Jerusalem, to Jesus,
given in two places in almost identical
words, would appear to be drawn from a
more reliable source. We read according
to the most natural translation, 'And after
James the Just had been martyred, as was
the Lord also for the same cause, again one
sprung from His uncle, Simeon the son of
Clopas, was made bishop, whom all put
forward, being the second who was cousin
of the Lord.' * In another place likewise
Hegesippus describes him as ' one sprung
from the uncle of the Lord, the afore-
mentioned Simeon the son of Clopas' 2 so
that the reference is clearly to the uncle
of our Lord, not to the uncle of James.
Eusebius in accordance with current opinion
on the matter understands it as meaning
that Clopas was the brother of Joseph, 3
and Lightfoot and Mayor, following
apparently Eusebius's gloss, rather curiously
translate 'paternal uncle,' 4 but the Greek
word is used by quite good authorities, as

1 Eusebius, Hist. EccL, iv. 22 ; P.G. xx. col. 380.

2 Ibid., Hi. 32 ; P.G. xx. col. 284.

a Ibid., ii. 1, iii. 11 ; P.G. xx. col. 133, 245-8.
4 Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 268 ; Mayor, St. James,
p. viii.

THE BRETHREN OF THE LORD 161

the orator Isseus l for mother's brother, as
well as for father's brother. Hegesippus'
statement may seem a circuitous way of
saying that Simeon was the brother of
James, but his whole point is to give not
Simeon's relationship to James but to our
Lord, that for the second time a son of the
Lord's uncle Clopas was chosen. That the
word we have translated c again ' the usual
translation should be rendered 'next,' and
that l the second,' which would seem
naturally to carry on the idea of ' again,'
should be understood as a reference to the
fact that Simeon was the second bishop in
the succession at Jerusalem is surely a very
forced rendering of the Greek, even though
Eusebius, who regarded James as the son
of Joseph, perhaps so understood it. 2 If
Mary the wife of Clopas was the sister of
Mary the mother of Jesus, as John says, it
might well mean that ' the other Mary ' was
the wife of the Virgin's brother, but hardly
that they were the wives of two brothers.
We conclude then that in all probability
Clopas was the brother of Mary, not of
Joseph, and that Simeon our Lord's cousin

1 DePynhiHereditate,5I; Mueller, Oratorum Atticorum,
i. 256.

8 Hist. Eccl, iii. 22, 32 ; P.G. xx. col. 256, 281.

M

162 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

was the son of Clopas and ' Mary the mother
of James the little and of loses,' as also
of Judas. On the death of Joseph, even
though after the birth of Jesus the ancient
rule that a childless widow should return
to her father's house would no longer apply?
it would be very natural that Mary should
live with her brother Clopas or Alphseus.
That cousins living together and brought
up as members of the same household should
in popular language be called brothers is
very natural, and as the Greek word for
cousin is comparatively rare, appearing only
once in the New Testament, it is not easy
to see what else they could be called. The
word brethren has a wide range of meaning
in the New Testament. It is used of those
who are literally brethren, as children of
the same parents, or parent, of fellow Jews,
fellow Christians, and fellow men, of relatives
and of those who are relatives only in a
spiritual sense. St. Paul calls both Titus
and Epaphroditus ' my brother ' (2 Cor. ii.
13 ; Phil. ii. 25), because of the specially
intimate relationship in which each stood
to him. In the genealogy found in the first
gospel we read, ' And Josiah begat Jechoniah
and his brethren, at the time of the carrying
away to Babylon ' (i. 11). This is pre-

THE BRETHREN OF THE LORD 163

sumably based on a passage in the first book
of the Chronicles. ' And the sons of Josiah ;
the first born Johanan, the second Jehoiakim,
the third Zedekiah, the fourth Shallum.
And the sons of Jehoiakim : Jeconiah his
son, Zedekiah his son. And the sons of
Jeconiah the captive. . . . ' (iii. 15-17).
Jeconiah is the grandson, not the son, of
Josiah, and Zedekiah is not the brother of
Jeconiah, but, like Johanan and Shallum,
his uncle. Matthew thus speaks of uncle
and nephew as brethren, following a not
uncommon usage of the Old Testament
(Gen. xiii. 8, cf. xi. 27; xxix. 15, cf. 10;
Judg. ix. 3, cf. 1), where indeed brethren
is used of relatives generally, or members of
the same household (Gen. xxxi. 23, 32, 37),
dwelling together or enjoying the same
inheritance (Ps. cxxxiii. 1, Deut. xxv. 5-10,
cf. Ruth iv. 1-10), and, what is of special
importance for our argument, of cousins
(Lev. x. 1-4 ; 2 Sam. xx. 9, cf. xvii. 25,
1 Chron. xxiii. 21-22). That Jesus dwelt
together with those called His brethren, as
a member of the same household, seems plain
from the fourth gospel. 'He went down to
Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his
brethren, and his disciples : and there they
abode not many days ' (ii. 12). As the

164 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

Old Testament usage with regard to the
word brethren is so wide, and this is found
also at any rate in the first gospel, where
uncle and nephew are called brethren, from
the point of view of the meaning of the word
there would seem to be no insuperable
difficulty in using it to describe cousins
living together, and in all probability brought
up together, as members of the same family,
which after the death of Joseph appears to
have been the case with Jesus and James,
Joses, Judas and Simon.

On each of the occasions on which it
is recorded in the gospels that His brethren
came to Jesus, both when they urged Him
to go and manifest Himself in Judaea
(John vii. 3), and when they said He was
beside Himself, and wished to take hold
on Him (Mark iii. 21, cf. 31), there seems
to be a certain assumption of authority
over Him, the explanation of which may
perhaps be that they, or some of them f
were older than Jesus, and had been
accustomed to expect a certain amount of
deference at home on that account. On the
assumption that the brethren were actually
the sons of Mary, or even as is sometimes
supposed, the sons of Joseph by a former
wife, as there were at least four of them

THE BRETHREN OF THE LORD 165

besides several sisters, it is inexplicable that
Jesus on the cross should have entrusted His
mother to the care of the beloved disciple,
unless we regard the incident, being recorded
only in the fourth gospel, as unhistorical,
which would be contrary to the estimate
we have formed of the value of this gospel
in the course of our argument. If, however,
the brethren and sisters were really His
cousins, even though older in years, we have
a quite adequate explanation, in view of the
intimate friendship which existed between
Jesus and the beloved disciple, even though
they were her nephews and nieces.

It is of course easy to urge, as is frequently
done, that words mean what they say, and
that the brethren must have been the sons
of Mary and Joseph. This hypothesis, how-
ever, only seems to create new difficulties,
of which the incident at the cross is only
one, even if we see nothing extraordinary
in the existence of two pairs of brothers,
James and Joses. The conclusion to which
we have been led by an unbiased examina-
tion of the facts has the advantage of fitting
them all into one consistent scheme.

It is also sometimes objected that the
brethren of the Lord are always mentioned
with His mother, and not with 'the other

166 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

Mary,' as we should expect if the latter
were their mother. A little thought, how-
ever, suggests that it is by no means certain
that she was absent on these occasions, even
though, as she plays no distinctive part in
the gospel story, her name is not mentioned.
We read of her first in the accounts of the
crucifixion and resurrection, but we are told
that then she had already companied with
Jesus some time, having with other women
ministered to Him as He went from place
to place in Galilee (Mark xv. 40-41, cf. Luke
viii. 1-3), and followed Him thence to
Jerusalem (Luke xxiii. 49, 55, xxiv. 6, 10 ;
Mark xv. 40-41). When Jesus, His mother,
His brethren, and His disciples went down
to Capernaum (John ii. 12) it is very im-
probable that * the other Mary ' was not one
of them, if we are right in her identity,
though there was no need to mention it.
Probably His sisters also were present.
' Mary the mother of James ' was already
with Jesus, it would seem according to Luke
(viii. 1-3, xxiii. 55, xxiv. 10), when His
mother and brethren came unto Him (viii.
19), and so she would obviously not be
mentioned as with the brethren, though it
is possible that His sisters may have come
with them, as Mark speaks generally of

THE BRETHREN OF THE LORD 167

4 his friends ' (iii. 21), and Jesus mentions
His sister as well as His brother and mother
in His reply, 'Whosoever shall do the will
of God, the same is my brother, and sister,
and mother' (Mark iii. 35). These words,
if said in her presence, give special point
to the injunction to this Mary with Mary
Magdalene on Easter morning. ' Go tell
my brethren that they depart into Galilee '
(Matt, xxviii. 10). We may certainly con-
clude that ' the other Mary ' was among
those in the upper room after the ascension,
when we are told the apostles continued
steadfastly in prayer ' with the women, and
Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his
brethren ' (Acts i. 14). The argument that
the Lord's brethren are always mentioned with
His motherland not with the other Mary,
seems thus entirely to fall to the ground,
and our contention remains untouched.

CHAPTER VI

BRETHREN WHO WERE APOSTLES

ON each occasion when they are mentioned
the Lord's brethren seem to be distinguished
from the apostles, yet this need not mean
that none of them was an apostle, but only
that as a body the brethren were distinct
from the apostolic band. What, however,
is regarded by some as an insuperable
objection to even one of them, as James,
being among the twelve is to be found in the
statement of the fourth gospel, ' Even his
brethren did not believe on him ' (vii. 5),
following immediately after our Lord's ques-
tion, * Did not I choose you the twelve ? '
(vi. 70), which shows that the apostles were
already appointed. Not only are the brethen
distinct from the twelve, who still believed
in spite of Jesus' hard sayings (vi. 67-68),
but the attitudes of the two groups to Him
seem quite contradictory. John's testimony
also seems supported by that of Mark.
Immediately after appointing the twelve

BRETHREN WHO WERE APOSTLES 169

apostles we are told Jesus went into a house,
the multitude coming together again, and
' when his friends heard it, they went out
to lay hold on him : for they said, He is
beside himself ' (Mark iii. 21). Among those
called ' his friends ' who thought Him mad
we need not include His mother, though she
came with them, but we must include His
brethren, whoever else there may have been,
sisters or others. Of this disbelief of His
own family Jesus Himself seems to have
spoken at Nazareth, 4 A prophet is not
without honour, save in his own country,
and among his own kin, and in his own house- 5
(Mark vi. 4), and as this, according to Luke,
the more authentic record, if our contention
be correct, was at the very beginning of His
ministry, their unbelief must have been
of some standing. Is it necessary, however,
to understand the words of either of the
evangelists as meaning that not one of the
four brethren mentioned, James, Joses, Judas,
and Simon, believed on Him ? An investiga-
tion of the methods of conveying informa-
tion adopted by the writers of the gospels
will be useful. John says, 'After these
things came Jesus and his disciples into the
land of Judaea ; and there he tarried with
them, and baptised ' (iii. 22). This would

170 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

appear to be a plain enough statement
that it was Jesus, not His disciples, Who
baptised, and it is confirmed by the words
recorded as spoken by the Baptist's disciples
to their master, 'Rabbi, he that was with
thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou hast
borne witness, behold, the same baptiseth,
and all men come to him 3 (in. 26). The
statement is absolute, with no qualification.
A third time the evangelist says the same
thing, and then, as an afterthought, it seems
to have occurred to him that his thrice-
made statement was not literally true, ' When
therefore the Lord knew how that the
Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making
and baptising more disciples than John
(although Jesus himself baptised not, but
his disciples) he left Judaea ' (iv. 1-3). It
is clear that however absolute a statement
of the evangelist may seem it is not
necessarily to be taken as unconditionally
true, so that when he says, ' Even his brethren
did not believe on him ' (vii. 5) it need not
be understood as implying that not a single
one of them believed, though it was true
of the brethren as a body. So too Mark
says, ' Now the chief priests and the whole
council sought witness against Jesus to put
him to death. . . . And they all condemned
him to be worthy of death ' (xiv. 55, 64).

BRETHREN WHO WERE APOSTLES 171

If the evangelist had wished to imply that
there were , no exceptions he could hardly
have used much more comprehensive
language, and he repeats the statement,
4 the chief priests with the elders and scribes,
and the whole council, held a consultation,
and bound Jesus, and carried him away,
and delivered him up to Pilate ' (xv. 1).
Yet a little later he makes it quite plain
that there must have been at least one who
' had not consented to their counsel and
deed,' when he says, ' there came Joseph
of Arimathsea, a councillor of honourable
estate . . . and he boldly went in unto
Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus '
(xv. 43). Clearly, however absolute and
without qualification a statement of the
gospel may be, we need not necessarily
believe that there were no exceptions, so
that when we are told that our Lord said,
4 A prophet is not without honour, save in
his own country, and among his own kin,
and in his own house ' (vi. 4), and that ' when
his friends heard it, they went out to lay
hold on him : for they said, He is beside
himself ' (iii. 21), even if by ' his friends '
we are to understand ' his mother and his
brethren ' (iii. 31), it is clear that we have
no evidence that there was no one of His
brethren who believed in Him, though their

172 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

attitude as a body was that described by
the evangelist. In 1 Cor. ix. 5 c the brethren
of the Lord ' can hardly be intended to
include James. There need, therefore, be
no difficulty in supposing that one of the
Lord's brethren, James, was a believer at
quite an early period of His ministry, though
not necessarily, even if very probably, at
the time of His visit to Nazareth, which
according to Luke, whose narrative, we have
decided, is as a rule more reliable than
Mark's, took place before the appointment
of the twelve. The supposition that James
was an unbeliever until after the resurrection
of Jesus, and that, as St. Paul says, 'he
appeared to James ' (1 Cor. xv. 7) in order
to convert him, seems contrary to our Lord's
principles of action, according to which He
will not compel belief (Luke iv. 9-12), and,
in particular, contrary to the principles of
His manifestations after His resurrection,
as St. Peter says, ' not to all the people,
but unto witnesses that were chosen before
of God, even to us ' (Acts x. 41). Jesus
might appear to those who did not believe
in the resurrection, but not to those who
would not believe in Himself. James, there-
fore, must have been a believer before the
resurrection, which is confirmed by the
so-called gospel of the Hebrews, whatever

BRETHREN WHO WERE APOSTLES 173

its value. There seems, then, to be no
sufficient argument against the idea that
James was not only an apostle but one of
the twelve. After asserting his apostleship
to the Corinthians St. Paul says, ' Have we
no right to eat and to drink ? Have we no
right to lead about a wife that is a believer,
even as the rest of the apostles, and the
brethren of the Lord, and Cephas? Or I
only and Barnabas, have we not a right to
forbear working ? ' (1 Cor. ix. 4-6). The
word apostles here certainly includes others
besides the twelve, as Paul and Barnabas.
Cephas is the first of the twelve. The
brethren occupy an intermediate position,
which suggests that all may have been
apostles in some sense, and, though James
appears to be excluded on this occasion,
that one or more may have belonged to the
twelve. It is sometimes argued that ' Judas
of James ' in Luke's lists of the twelve
apostles (vi. 16, Acts i. 18) is Judas the
Lord's brother (Mark vi. 3) ; but probably
the meaning is that Judas was the son, not
the brother of James, literary usage allowing
us to supply ' son,' but apparently not
4 brother.' We notice, too, that in the
epistle ascribed to Jude his chief claim to
distinction is said to be not that he was an
apostle, but that he was ' brother of James '

174 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

(Jude 1). That Simon the Cananaean (Mark
iii. 18) is to be identified with Simon the
Lord's brother (Mark vi. 3) is even more
unlikely. Apart from the appearance of the
same three names, James, Simon and Judas,
in the two lists of the Lord's brethren and
of the apostles, there seems to be no argu-
ment in its favour, the name Simon being
particularly common. Hegesippus in the
extracts quoted 1 gives no hint that the
Simeon, cousin of the Lord, who succeeded
James at Jerusalem was an apostle. There
is, however, something to be said in favour
of Matthew the apostle being a cousin
of the Lord, and so in. a sense His brother.
'Matthew the publican,' according to the
first gospel (ix. 9, x. 3), is certainly the person
described by Luke as c a publican, named
Levi ' (v. 27), and by Mark as ' Levi the son
of Alphseus ' (ii. 14). Alphseus is by no
means a common name, and is used in the
New Testament only of the father of James,
and the father of Matthew. Mark alone
describes Levi as the son of Alphseus, and
unless he is referring to the Alphseus whom
we find mentioned in each of the four lists
of the apostles his addition is distinctly
misleading. No other Levi appearing in the
gospels, save in Luke's genealogy, where the

1 See p. 160.

BRETHREN WHO WERE APOSTLES 175

name is spelled differently, ' of Alphaeus '
cannot be explained, like ' of James ' in
connexion with Judas, as necessary for
identification. There seems to be no sufficient
reason to suppose that, unless otherwise
stated, whenever a name appears in a gospel,
or even in the New Testament, it must refer
to a different person each time ; it is more
natural, very frequently, to suppose that it
refers to one mentioned elsewhere. The
probability, therefore, would appear to be
that Levi or Matthew was another of the
cousins of Jesus, and brother of James,
Joses, Judas and Simon, the son of Alphseus
and Mary. He is not mentioned by the
people of Nazareth as a brother of the
Lord, because he no longer lived there, but
was established in business in Capernaum.
That they should say ' Are not his sisters
here with us?' (Mark vi. 3), 'all' of them,
according to the first gospel (xiii. 56), may
perhaps be taken to suggest that this was
not the case with all the brethren, but that
one or more dwelt elsewhere. On no other
occasion in the gospels are any of the Lord's
brethren alluded to as such by name, and
even in the epistles James alone is so
described, so that we need not be surprised
that Matthew is nowhere called ' the Lord's
brother.' That ' Mary the mother of James '

176 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

(Luke xxiv. 10 ; Mark xvi. 1) is never
called the mother of Levi, though she is
called ' the mother of James the little and
of Joses ' (Mark xv. 40), and ' the mother
of Joses' (Mark xv. 47), may perhaps be
explained by the fact that the different
descriptions in Mark appear to be merely
interpretative variants of Luke's 4 mother of
James ' on the basis of the tradition with
regard to the household at Nazareth, to
which James belonged, incorporated in the
account of Jesus' visit to His own country
(vi. 3), while it is of course possible that
though Levi was the son of Alphseus he was
not the son of Mary, in which case, as he
would necessarily be older than the rest,
we should have an explanation, not only
of his absence from Nazareth but of the fact
that he had been able to attain to a position
of such importance in Capernaum while his
brothers were still at home. The short
stay of our Lord with His relatives and
disciples at Capernaum, recorded in the
fourth gospel at the beginning of His
ministry, is more reasonably explained, like
His presence at the marriage feast at Cana,
which immediately precedes it, as a visit
primarily for family and social purposes,
and not for the work of His ministry:

BRETHREN WHO WERE APOSTLES 177

'After this he went down to Capernaum,
he, and his mother, and his brethren, and
his disciples : and there they abode not
many days ' (ii. 12). Apparently Jesus was
as well known at Capernaum as at Nazareth
(John vi. 42, cf. Luke iv. 22). If Matthew
-were a member of the same family, we have
an explanation both natural and sufficient.
That he made Jesus a great feast in his
house (Luke v. 29) after his call may also
be taken as evidence of more than ordinary
familiarity, nothing of the sort being men-
tioned after the call of Peter and Andrew,
or of James and John, though Jesus was
already on intimate terms with those of
Simon's house according to Luke (iv. 38,
v. 10-11), and Zebedee at any rate certainly
seems to have been in a financial position
such that the cost would have presented
no difficulty (Mark i. 20). All these con-
siderations, however, must necessarily be
to some extent speculative : yet, whatever
their value, the fact remains that there
seems to be no conclusive argument against
the hypothesis that Matthew, or Levi the
son of Alphseus, was a cousin of our Lord,
while as we have seen there is much to
commend it, and it gives fresh significance
to several incidents in the gospel narrative.

N

CHAPTER VII

THE SOURCES OF THE BIRTH NARRATIVES

EACH of the synoptic gospels appears to be
based on traditions derived ultimately from
Peter and John, 1 and where the narrative is
found in all three gospels the probability
is that the source is Petrine. The call of
only five of the apostles is recorded. Peter,
Andrew, James and John were partners in
a fishing business, and were called practically
together (Luke v. 10-11, Mark i. 16-20), so
that we can understand Peter's interest in
the matter, and the place their call occupies
in a tradition derived from him. The
suggestion is that he had likewise a special
interest in Matthew, arising perhaps from
their common residence in Capernaum, and
their necessary dealings with one another
in connexion with the fisheries. The first
gospel is by far the most Petrine, much more
so even than Mark, and it is in this that

1 See ' The Origin of the Gospels,' C.Q.B., July, 1922.

SOURCES OF NARRATIVES 179

we find the collection of prophecies trans-
lated from the Aramaic or Hebrew which we
have seen reason to identify with the Logia,
compiled in Hebrew by Matthew, according
to Papias. 1 If we think of Matthew as a
cousin of Jesus no one would be more likely
to have information about the birth of
Jesus than he, except His mother Mary
whose account is recorded by Luke. The
probability, then, would seem to be that
the evangelist derived his knowledge of the
birth narratives, as of the prophecies, from
Matthew through Peter, who appears to have
had a special connexion of some sort with
the publican and interest in him.

We cannot, however, ascribe all the details
of the birth stories of the first gospel to
Matthew, even if they are Petrine in some
degree. Joseph, according to -each of the
four evangelists, would appear to have died
before our Lord's ministry began, and so
before He came to realise at His baptism
the fullness of the work He came to do. It
is unlikely that Matthew or any of the
sons of Alphaeus was familiar with truths
about His office which were hidden from
Jesus Himself. Though His brethren may
have learned from Joseph the main features

1 See p. 135.

180 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

of the wonderful story of His birth, they
can scarcely have so learned all the details
recorded in the first gospel, that, for example,
the angel said to him, 4 Thou shalt call his
name Jesus ; for it is he that shall save
his people from their sins ' (i. 21), for this
presupposes the revelation made to Jesus
in the vision at His baptism, that He was
the Servant of Jehovah, Who should bear
the sin of many (Is. liii. 12). Some of the
phraseology of the account of the announce-
ment to Joseph of the birth of Jesus we have
seen is Lucan, some we now see must be
interpretative, added perhaps unconsciously
to the nucleus of the story in the light of
later knowledge and experience. Yet the
mystery of His birth, and the main outline
of the wonderful events which accompanied
it, must have been a treasured secret of the
family. We note indeed that even when
we are told that 'his brethren did not
believe on him' (John vii. 5), they yet
expected great things of Him, and saw
in His works a sign of possible greatness:
4 If thou doest these things, manifest thyself
to the world ' (vii. 4) ; and even if as yet they
did not believe on Him, they do not appear
to have been unacquainted with His
Messianic claims, or to have regarded them
as entirely incredible. Their unbelief was

SOURCES OF NARRATIVES 181

not inconsistent with some knowledge of
His mysterious birth and its wonderful
accompaniments, rousing in them greater
expectations than they could at this period
bring themselves to believe. The general
outline of the story of His birth, as told by
man to man, by Joseph to his brother-in-law
if not to his nephews, might well be known
by the Lord's cousins and brethren, and by
them be told to Peter and perhaps others,
though all the details, as we have seen, can
hardly be regarded as equally authentic,
being traceable to some extent not to
Matthew but to Luke and his earlier record,
and in part to interpretative additions such
as are natural in the course of oral instruction.
We thus arrive at an explanation of the
birth stories of the first gospel which,
though of necessity hypothetical and in-
capable of proof, yet does appear to fit
all the facts.

Though in some of the details the account
given in the first gospel may not be in the
strict sense historical, yet our criticism,
whatever its value, has left absolutely un-
touched the basal fact of the virgin birth.
From a literary point of View indeed the
evidence is much stronger than before, for
we see that the evangelist unites in his
record the testimony of various authorities

182 NARRATIVES OF VIRGIN BIRTH

and various traditions. The doctrine comes
to Us then with the authority of Luke and
his source, probably the apostle St. John,
and ultimately the virgin mother, with the
authority of Mark, who, though he con-
ceived it no part of his duty to narrate it,
yet altered his source, calling Jesus c the
son of Mary,' so as not even to seem to deny
it, and with the authority of Matthew and
the different lines of tradition combined in
the first gospel, that presumably derived
from our Lord's relatives according to the
flesh, His brethren and ultimately Joseph,
through Matthew the apostle and probably
also Peter, and that which suggested the
prophecy of Isaiah vii. 14 as illustrating the
virgin birth, which, if it did not originate with
Matthew, was at any rate recorded by
him apparently in his Hebrew Logia, as
well as the tradition of Luke which the
first evangelist, we have decided, knew
and utilised for his own work. No literary
criticism can provide a proof of the super-
natural. If proof is conceivable it must be
sought in another sphere. Criticism can do
no more than sift the evidence, and show
to what extent particular elements may be
regarded as reliable from the point of view
not of science but of literature.

SOURCES OF NARRATIVES 183

The very possibility of the virgin birth is
frequently denied, but is it so unreasonable
as is sometimes supposed ? Partheno-
genesis is common among certain of the
lower orders of creation, and may be induced
even by non-natural stimuli. In the higher
orders also, among animals and human
beings, there occur phenomena of a similar
type which are explained pathologically as
examples of virgin conception, though never
apparently resulting in a virgin birth. If
levitation may occur when a person is in an
ecstatic condition, and stigmatisation may
follow a vision of our Lord vouchsafed to
one yearning ardently for union with Him
in His passion and of each there seems to
be ample evidence it is not easy to see
why other occurrences, no more contrary
to the ordinary working of nature, should
be regarded as impossible. As the result
of an ecstasy Zacharias became dumb and
St. Paul blind, the physical consequence in
each case being suited to the occasion and
consonant with the object of the vision.
There would seem to be nothing unreasonable,
therefore, in supposing that with the right
dispositions the stimulus of an ecstasy might
result, not only in the reception of power
to be a father in one like Zacharias devoutly

184 NARRATIVES OP VIRGIN BIRTH

longing and praying for a son, but also in
the reception of power to be a mother,
though still a virgin, in one yearning like
all pious Jewish maidens that .through her
might be born the expected Messiah. It
may be that the virgin birth ought to be
regarded as an event not so much miraculous
as unique. Only to a highly favoured few
is an ecstasy ever vouchsafed, and to what
other maiden in an ecstasy could it have been
revealed at any time that she should receive
power to become the mother of the Son of
God? (Luke i. 35).

In these pages, however, we are concerned
not so much with scientific speculation as
with the sifting of evidence, however it may
be explained. After all, if we believe in
the stupendous fact of the Incarnation, belief
in the virgin birth is a very small thing.
To the childlike mind of the simple Christian
the latter has always seemed, if not an
absolutely necessary, at any rate the most
fitting method of compassing the former.
If this essay is successful in making the faith
of the Church in this particular in any degree
easier to believe, it will not have been in vain.

Per Mysterium sanctae Incarnationis tuae,
Per Nativitatem tuam,

Libera nos, Domine,

Printed in England, ly Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. Ltd., Colelmter, London & Eton

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